A divergent and highly enantioselective synthetic methodology not only for bothenantiomers of α-amino acids but for bothchirally deuterated glycines from a single starting material was developed by making use of stereocontrol with antiparallel double repulsion on the diacetone-D-glucos-3-ulose template.
trichloroacetonitrile. The Overman's thermal rearrangement of 5a and 5b underwent with high diastereoselectivity to afford (Z)-allylic trichloroacetamide 6a and 6b, which in turn were converted to L- and D-alanine, respectively, by oxidative cleavage of the double bond and acid hydrolysis. The effectiveness of the present approach was assessed by using the simplest allylicalcohol system, i.e. (Z)- and