A Modified,High Yield Procedure for the Synthesis of Unlabeled and 14C-Labeled 4-Methylene-DL-glutamic Acid

This paper describes the complete chemical synthesis of 4-methylene-DL-glutamic acid from diethylmalonate, formaldehyde and diethyl acetamidomalonate. The amino acid was obtained pure following ion-exchange chromatography and/or crystallization from hot water in an overall yield of 30% based on the amount of diethylmalonate used. Several physico-chemical characteristics of the synthetic compound were determined, including ir and pmr spectra, chromatography on paper, retention time on an amino acid analyzer, pK values and melting point; all properties cf the synthetic material were found to be identical to those seen with the naturally occurring L-isomer. The procedure for obtaining gram quantities of the unlabeled compound has also been modified for the synthesis of high specific activity (10.6 mCi/nmol) 4-methylene-2-¹⁴C]-DL-glutamic acid.