Concurrent esterification and N-acetylation of amino acids with orthoesters: a useful reaction with interesting mechanistic implications

The concurrent esterification and N-acetylation of amino acids has been studied with triethyl orthoacetate (TEOA) and triethyl orthoformate (TEOF). In a surprising finding, only 1 equiv of TEOA in refluxing toluene was necessary to convert l-proline and l-phenylalanine into the corresponding N-acetyl ethyl esters in good yield. The same transformation using TEOF was not effective. Stereochemical outcome and stoichiometric studies as well as structural variation of the amino acids in this reaction provided unexpected mechanistic insight.