Syntheses of α-Amino Acids by Using CO₂ as a C1 Source

The incorporation of CO₂ into organic compounds is currently one of the most active research topics in organic chemistry, because CO₂ is an abundant, inexpensive, nontoxic, and renewable C1 source. However, CO₂ is also a thermodynamically stable and kinetically inert gaseous compound, and as such, special strategies are required to activate CO₂ and incorporate it into organic compounds. In particular, because the carbon atom adjacent to the nitrogen atom of amine derivatives is positively charged, umpolung carboxylation, which is a difficult chemical process, should be considered for the production of α-amino acids by using CO₂ . In this Minireview, we summarize recent synthetic methods for α-amino acids that use CO₂ as a carboxylic acid unit.