Proton‐Catalyzed Disulfide Exchange of S‐Alkylthio Cysteine Derivatives
Although N‐unprotected S‐alkylthio cysteine derivatives are relatively stable in acid solutions, N‐acylsubstituted and N‐urethane protected S‐alkylthio cysteines react easily by disulfide exchange. As a rule the frequently used tert.‐butyloxycarbonyl amino protecting group, present in ethylthio cysteine derivatives can′t be removed selectively without disulfide cleavage, whilst the 2‐(p‐biphenylyl)isopropyloxycarbonyl and the 2‐phenyl‐isopropyloxycarbonyl amino protecting groups are removable without any structure change of the alkylthio thiol protecting groups. It is advisable to realize this acid demasking of the amino groups by means of weak deblocking reagents. Comperative experiments in acid solution prove S‐tert.‐butylthio group to be the most stable protecting function, whilst isopropylthio cysteine derivatives are more stable than the corresponding S‐ethylthio compounds. All these results and experiments with addition of different thiols as well as u.v.‐spectroscopic investigations indicate, that the observed acid catalyzed disulfide exchange proceeds via a carbonyl neighbouring group effect and formation of thiazolidinium and thiazolinium intermediates, respectively.