Pimelic acid is the organic compound with the formula HO2C(CH2)5CO2H. Pimelic acid is one CH 2 unit longer than a related dicarboxylic acid, adipic acid, a precursor to many polyesters and polyamides. However compared to adipic acid, pimelic acid is relatively small in importance industrially.[2] Derivatives of pimelic acid are involved in the biosynthesis of the amino acidlysine and the vitamin biotin.
Synthesis
Biosynthesis
The biosynthesis of pimelic acid is unknown but is speculated to start with malonyl CoA.[3]
Many other methods exist. Pimelic acid has been synthesized from cyclohexanone and from salicylic acid.[4] In the former route, the additional carbon is supplied by dimethyloxalate, which reacts with the enolate.
In other syntheses, pimelic acid is made from cyclohexene-4-carboxylic acid,[5] and a fourth method also exists based on the 1,4 reaction of malonate systems with acrolein.[6]
^H. R. Snyder; L. A. Brooks; S. H. Shapiro; A. Müller (1931). "Pimelic Acid". Organic Syntheses. 11: 42. doi:10.15227/orgsyn.011.0042.
^Werber, Frank X.; Jansen, J. E.; Gresham, T. L. (1952). "The Synthesis of Pimelic Acid from Cyclohexene-4-carboxylic Acid and its Derivatives". Journal of the American Chemical Society. 74 (2): 532. doi:10.1021/ja01122a075.
^Warner, Donald T.; Moe, Owen A. (1952). "Synthesis of Pimelic Acid and α-Substituted Pimelic Acid and Intermediates1". Journal of the American Chemical Society. 74 (2): 371. doi:10.1021/ja01122a024.