Trifluoromethyl-substituted hydantoins, versatile building blocks for rational drug design

Preparatively simple, one-pot syntheses of trifluoromethyl-substituted hydantoins starting from Boc-protected imines of hexafluoroacetone and trifluoropyruvate are described. They represent valuable building blocks for the construction of constrained peptides or as scaffolds for the synthesis of highly potent VLA-4 antagonists. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.