Rapid cleavage of unactivated, unstrained amide bonds at neutral pH

Building upon the discovery of Suggs and Pires that N-(2-hydroxyethyl)glycine amides undergo rapid amide cleavage under mild conditions [ Suggs, J. W. ; Pires, R. M. Tetrahedron Lett. 1997, 38, 2227-2230 ], we synthesized the derivatives (4aalpha,8beta,8aalpha)-1-ethylamido-8-hydroxydecahydroquinoline ( 4) and (4aalpha,8alpha,8abeta)-1-ethylamido-8-hydroxydecahydroquinoline ( 5). These two species are conformationally constrained, but steric compression is not introduced between the hydroxyl group and the amide functionality it attacks. At 20 degrees C and slightly basic pH, derivatives 4 and 5 undergo amide cleavage with half-lives of 21 min and 14 h, respectively, which correspond to rate increases of 251- and 6.3-fold relative to the acyclic analogue N-(2-hydroxyethyl)glycine amide ( 3).