Building blocks for the solution phase synthesis of oligonucleotides: regioselective hydrolysis of 3',5'-Di-O-levulinylnucleosides using an enzymatic approach.

A short and convenient synthesis of 3'- and 5'-O-levulinyl-2'-deoxynucleosides has been developed from the corresponding 3',5'-di-O-levulinyl derivatives by regioselective enzymatic hydrolysis, avoiding several tedious chemical protection/deprotection steps. Thus, Candida antartica lipase B (CAL-B) was found to selectively hydrolyze the 5'-levulinate esters, furnishing 3'-O-levulinyl-2'-deoxynucleosides 3 in >80% isolated yields. On the other hand, immobilized Pseudomonas cepacia lipase (PSL-C) and Candida antarctica lipase A (CAL-A) exhibit the opposite selectivity toward the hydrolysis at the 3'-position, affording 5'-O-levulinyl derivatives 4 in >70% yields. A similar hydrolysis procedure was successfully extended to the synthesis of 3'- and 5'-O-levulinyl-protected 2'-O-alkylribonucleosides 7 and 8. This work demonstrates for the first time application of commercial CAL-B and PSL-C toward regioselective hydrolysis of levulinyl esters with excellent selectivity and yields. It is noteworthy that protected cytidine and adenosine base derivatives were not adequate substrates for the enzymatic hydrolysis with CAL-B, whereas PSL-C was able to accommodate protected bases during selective hydrolysis. In addition, we report an improved synthesis of dilevulinyl esters using a polymer-bound carbodiimide as a replacement for dicyclohexylcarbodiimide (DCC), thus considerably simplifying the workup for esterification reactions.