New observations on peptide bond formation using CDMT

The optimized formation of the peptide bond by means of 2-chloro-4,6-dimethoxy-1,3,5-triazine (CDMT) has been found to occur rapidly and essentially quantitatively in a one-pot, one-step procedure. This new method is effective for the coupling of a variety of reactive partners, including chiral amino acids (e.g. N-acetyl-l-leucine) without significant loss of configuration. Significant racemization was observed when the typical literature conditions were used, due to the formation of an azlactone intermediate which is configurationally unstable under the reaction conditions. A simpler, precipitative workup procedure is also disclosed in this report.