The potential application of catalytic antibodies to protecting group removal: Catalytic antibodies with broad substrate tolerance

Article abstract of DOI:10.1021/ja00113a001

A catalytic antibody was developed to selectively cleave the alcohol ester of 4-nitrophenylacetyl moiety while also tolerating a wide variety of structural variation on the alcohol portion of the molecule. The basis to the success of this study was that antibody epitope recognition was directed toward only key elements contained within the 4-nitrophenylacetyl group and not the entire haptenic molecule. This study offers the potential application of catalytic antibodies as practical reagents for the selective deprotection of complex multifunctionalized molecules possessing class similar protecting groups. Such a chemoabzymatic approach could eventually minimize synthetic complications which can arise from functional group protection in the synthesis of complex natural products.