Total synthesis of aeruginosin 298-A analogs containing ring oxygenated variants of 2-carboxy-6-hydroxyoctahydroindole

Aeruginosins are a family of naturally occurring oligopeptides sharing a common perhydroindole-2-carboxylic acid (l-Choi) core structure. Many aeruginosins exhibit inhibitory activity against serine proteases including thrombin. Aeruginosin 298-A is a tetrapeptide containing the l-Choi core structure and three other unusual amino acids or their derivatives; it is a thrombin and trypsin inhibitor. As part of our effort in finding effective thrombin inhibitors from natural product analogs and to understand the influence of the rigid bicyclic amino acid to the thrombin inhibition activities, we synthesized two aeruginosin 298-A analogs in which the l-Choi is replaced with ring oxygenated perhydroindole-2-carboxylic acids. The Choi variants are enantiomers synthesized from d- and l-glucose, respectively. The preparation of the aeruginosin 298-A analogs containing the ring oxygenated Choi variants and their inhibition activities toward thrombin and trypsin are reported.