Novel approach to saturated amino acid derivatives with isolated (hetero)cyclic rings via the hydrogenation of dienes

Synthesis of amino acids with isolated saturated (hetero)carbocyclic scaffold was disclosed. The method relied on Suzuki cross-coupling reaction of heteroacycloalkene triflates and N- Boc-tetrahydropyridine boron pinacolates followed by catalytic hydrogenation of the conjugated dienes thus obtained, which proceeded with good diastereoselectivity for scaffolds with two six-membered cycles and low diastereoselectivity for a five-membered analog. Several amino acid derivatives have also been obtained, i.e. amino esters, N H- and N -Boc-substituted amino acids – promising building blocks for medicinal and synthetic chemistry.