Enantiomeric Separation of N-Protected Non-Protein Amino Acid Esters by Chiral High-Performance Liquid Chromatography

Abstract

Abstract We have found that high-performance liquid chromatographic analysis of enantiomeric N-protected amino acid esters on a cellulose tris(3,5-dimethylphenylcarbamate) chiral stationary phase column (Daicel Chiralcel OD) can be utilized as one of the procedures for determining the optical purities of non-protein amino acids. The methyl esters of the N-benzyloxycarbonyl (Z) derivatives of a number of non-protein amino acids showed excellent to good enantiomeric separations using hexane - 2-propanol as a mobile phase. There was a regularity in the elution order of enantiomers: the L-isomer had a shorter retention time than the D-isomer. We have also investigated the effect of the N-protecting groups and the ester groups on the enantiomeric separation. The Z, 4-methoxybenzyloxycarbonyl (Z(OMe)), and 9-fluorenylmethoxycarbonyl (Fmoc) derivatives gave exceptionally good resolutions. By contrast, the formyl and t-butoxycarbonyl (Boc) groups impaired the enantiomeric separation. Almost all the alkyl esters e...