Synthetic Access to 3-Substituted Pyroglutamic Acids from Tetramate Derivatives of Serine, Threonine, allo-Threonine, and Cysteine.

A general route which provides direct access to pyroglutamates from tetramates, making use of Suzuki coupling on an enol mesylate, followed by reduction, is reported. This work permits direct scaffold hopping from tetramate to substituted pyroglutamates. Some compounds in the library showed modest antibacterial activity against Gram-positive bacteria.