Synthesis and Properties of a 2-Diazohistidine Derivative: A New Photoactivatable Aromatic Amino-Acid Analog

N^α(tert-Butoxy)carbonyl]-2-diazo-L -histidine methyl ester 1 was synthesized starting from the corresponding L-histidine derivative. The physico-chemical properties of this new photoactivatable amino-acid derivative were established. The synthetic precursor of 1 , 2-amino-L -histidine derivative 3 , was best isolated and characterized as 2-amino-N^α-(tert-butoxy)carbonyl]-N^τ-tosyl-L -histidine methyl ester ( 4 ). Selective deprotections of 4 (N^α-Boc, N^α-Tos, COOMe) were achieved, thus allowing the use of the corresponding products in peptide synthesis. The optically active dipeptides 8 and 9 were synthesized by coupling 2-amino-N^τ-tosyl-L -histidine methyl ester ( 5 ) with N-(tert-butoxy)carbonyl]-L -alanine and N^α-(tert-butoxy)carbonyl]-N^τ-tosyl-L -histidine ( 6 ) with L-alanine methyl ester, respectively. The question of selective diazotization of a 2-aminohistidine residue in a synthetic peptide was studied using competitive diazotizations between 2-amino-1H-imidazole and several amino-acid derivatives susceptible to undergo nitrosylation. The results show that synthetic photoactivatable peptides incorporating a 2-diazohistidine residue might become useful photoaffinity probes.