Enantiomeric Separation of N-Protected Non-Protein Amino Acid Esters by Chiral High-Performance Liquid Chromatography

We have found that high-performance liquid chromatographic analysis of enantiomeric N-protected amino acid esters on a cellulose tris(3,5-dimethylphenylcarbamate) chiral stationary phase column (Daicel Chiralcel OD) can be utilized as one of the procedures for determining the optical purities of non-protein amino acids. The methyl esters of the N-benzyloxycarbonyl (Z) derivatives of a number of non-protein amino acids showed excellent to good enantiomeric separations using hexane - 2-propanol as a mobile phase. There was a regularity in the elution order of enantiomers: the L-isomer had a shorter retention time than the D-isomer. We have also investigated the effect of the N-protecting groups and the ester groups on the enantiomeric separation. The Z, 4-methoxybenzyloxycarbonyl (Z(OMe)), and 9-fluorenylmethoxycarbonyl (Fmoc) derivatives gave exceptionally good resolutions. By contrast, the formyl and t-butoxycarbonyl (Boc) groups impaired the enantiomeric separation. Almost all the alkyl esters examined and the benzyl ester gave resolutions better than or of the same order as the methyl ester. The resolution of β-amino acids was worse than that of the corresponding α-amino acids.