Review: The Chemistry of Chelates With N-Alkylated Amino Acids

N-alkylated α-amino acids are compounds very suitable for studying steric effects in chelates with heavy metals, especially copper(II). These chelates are especially interesting because of pronounced stereoselective effects (enantioselectivity) as well as because of distortion of the copper coordination polyhedron. In this short review all the aspects of coordination chemistry of N-alkylated amino acids are presented and steric effects are discussed from the viewpoint of results obtained from X-ray analyses and molecular mechanics calculations.