Ugi and Passerini reactions of biocatalytically derived chiral aldehydes: application to the synthesis of bicyclic pyrrolidines and of antiviral agent telaprevir.

Lipase mediated desymmetrization of a meso-diol (1,2-cyclopentanedimethanol) allows the synthesis of both enantiomers of some chiral aldehydes, whose behavior in Passerini and Ugi reactions has been explored. Exploiting these two complementary multicomponent reactions and coupling them with a subsequent cyclization process, we observed that 6 out of all 8 possible stereoisomers of peptidomimetic pyrrolidines can be obtained in good yields. The potential of these protocols has been proved by the development of a new efficient synthesis of antiviral drug telaprevir.