Amino Acids Chirons: A Tool for Asymmetric synthesis of Heterocycles

Abstract

Amino acids as chiral pool have been extensively used by synthetic organic and medicinal chemists for access to heterocycles (monocycles, bicycles or polycycles either bridged or fused) owing to their easy availability in enantiomerically enriched form and having synthetically transformable diverse functional groups. This review describes diverse asymmetric heterocycles with various membered rings (n=3-9) followed by benzo or heteroannulated ones for the period from 1996 to Dec, 2013. It details on those solution phase synthetic methodologies in which the naturally occurring α-amino acid is incorporated, totally or partially, in the final product.