First asymmetric syntheses of 6-substituted nipecotic acid derivatives

Various nipecotic acid derivatives are known to be potent GABA uptake inhibitors thus being useful in the treatment of a number of neurological and psychological disorders. In this paper, the first asymmetric syntheses of 6-substituted nipecotic acid derivatives are presented. The synthetic strategy was designed to provide access to a large variety of enantiomerically pure 6-substituted nipecotic acid derivatives. The synthesis starts from the chiral N-acyldihydropyridines and obtained via asymmetric electrophilic α-amidoalkylation reaction of a chiral N-acylpyridinium ion. These were utilized for the preparation of enantiomerically pure 6-(4,4-diphenylbutyl)nipecotic acids and 6-(4,4-diphenylbutenyl)nipecotic acids in a multistep synthesis, including the removal of the dimethylphenylsilyl blocking group from the dihydropyridine ring, the reduction of the dihydropyridine heterocycle, a Horner–Wittig reaction and the removal of the chiral auxiliary. The obtained target molecules, however, showed only negligible affinity to the GAT-1- and GAT-3 transport proteins.