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Bisurea calix[4]arenes
1 an
d 2 possessing
L-amino aci
d moieties at the lower rim were synthesize
d byreaction of the methyl esters of glycine,
L-alanine, or
L-isoleucine with the appropriate isocyanate (
12 or
13), obtaine
d with a safe an
d efficient Curtius rearrangement from the correspon
ding carboxylic aci
dderivatives. The conformational properties of the ligan
ds
1 an
d 2 were investigate
d by means of a combine
dNMR an
d molecular mo
deling stu
dy which evi
dences that they are
deeply influence
d by strongintramolecular H-bon
ds between the urea NH groups an
d the vicinal phenolic oxygen atoms or the oppositeurea C=O group. Complexation stu
dies performe
d by ESI-MS an
d NMR spectroscopy in acetone solutionshow that the bin
ding ability of these bisurea hosts
decreases by increasing the si
de chain size of theamino aci
d. Host
2b has a remarkable bin
ding ability for the
N-acetyl-
D-phenylalaninate anion with aninteresting enantioselectivity (
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= 4.14), which is explaine
d on the basis of a three-pointinteraction mo
de of bin
ding.