Metal-free, direct conversion of α-amino acids into α-keto γ-amino esters for the synthesis of α,γ-peptides.

An efficient, metal-free synthesis of unusual α-keto γ-amino esters from α-amino acids is achieved by a radical scission-oxidation-addition of silyloxy acrylates procedure, where no purification of the reaction intermediates is needed. This protocol can be applied to the selective modification of the C-terminal position in peptides to give α,γ-hybrids.