Facile Approach to Natural or Non-Natural Amino Acid Derivatives: Me₃SiCl-Promoted Coupling Reaction of Organozinc Compounds with N,O-Acetals

We have developed a Me3SiCl-promoted coupling reaction of aryl- and alkylzinc compounds, in-situ generated either by transmetalation of the corresponding organometallic reagents or by insertion of zinc metal into organic halides, with several N,O-acetals, which leads to the preparation of a variety of natural and non-natural amino acid derivatives. ((C) Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, 69451 Weinheim, Germany, 2009)