Advances in the Synthesis of Amino Acids and Analogues for Foldamers Study

Abstract

Synthetic amino acids have particular appeal to extend our understanding of protein structure and stabilization into the realm of folded, non biological polymers. Chemists are now beginning to design biomimetic amino acids that can form both secondary and tertiary structures. An overview of the synthesis of non-protein amino acids recently used in the design of conformationally well-defined foldamers—artificial oligomers that also adopt well-defined folded conformations— are discussed.