Design of bio-inspired catalysts based on a gamma-peptide foldamer architecture

The work described in this manuscript is devoted to the synthesis of heterocyclic constrained γ-amino acids, named ATCs (4-Amino-(methyl)-1,3-Thiazole-5-Carboxylic acids), their application in enamine catalysis and their structural study. ATC monomers are built around a thiazole ring providing a conformational limitation around the Cα and Cβ at 0°. The presence of two diversification points both on the γ asymmetric carbon and on the position 2 of the aromatic ring, allows a large structural diversification of the ATCs. Therefore, several oligomers were synthesized using solid phase peptide synthesis. A structural study of these oligomers, employing NMR, FTIR, circular dichroism and crystallography RX, demonstrated that they adopt a C9-right-handed helix stabilized by a hydrogen bond pattern between COi---NHi+2 along the helix. The objective of the project presented in this manuscript was the design and the structural characterization of molecular edifices with predictable folding properties and the systematic study of structure-function relationships in the nitro-Michael addition reaction, for three different substrates. Eventually, the last part of this work focused on the development of a new methodology, specific to ATC-oligomers, to perform 3D-modelling studies using NMR refinement.