Synthesis of enantiomerically enriched (R)-C-labelled 2-aminoisobutyric acid (Aib) by conformational memory in the alkylation of a derivative of L-alanine.

The method of Kouklovsky and coworkers for the enantioselective alkylation of cyclic N-naphthoyl derivatives of amino acids was used to introduce a (13)C label into one of the two enantiotopic methyl groups of 2-aminoisobutyric acid (Aib) by retentive alkylation of L-alanine with (13)CH(3)I. Conditions were identified for optimization of yield and enantiomeric purity, and the absolute configuration of the labelled product was established.