Concise syntheses of racemic and enantiopure deoxydysibetaine

Racemic deoxydysibetaine was efficiently obtained in few steps from methyl pyroglutamate. The 2S enantiomer was synthesized from (S)-pyroglutaminol as chiral starting material, through the key intermediate (S)-2-hydroxymethylglutamic acid recently prepared with complete stereoselectivity in our laboratory.