Carborane-containing amino acids and peptides: Synthesis, properties and applications

Derivatives of dicarba-closo-dodecaboranes and dicarba-nido-undecaboranes (carboranes) are of increasing interest for modern medicinal chemistry and materials science. The combination of carborane residues and amino acid fragments in one structure can serve as a basis for obtaining promising medicinal agents (primarily, for boron neutron capture therapy), as well as for design the materials with unique properties. For the first time, this review summarizes and analyzes information on the methods of preparation and possible applications of compounds combining in their structure amino acid and peptide residues and carborane clusters, their biological and physicochemical properties. Special attention is paid to the preparation of enantiopure conjugates, the chirality of which is due to both the presence of an asymmetric carbon atom in amino acid fragments and the planar chirality of the carborane cluster. We believe that this review provides comprehensive information about carborane-containing amino acids and peptides and will give a new impetus to the in-depth fundamental research in this field.