Phosphoramitoids-A submonomer approach to sequence defined N-substituted phosphoramidate polymers.

There is a growing interest in new methods to generate bio-inspired, chemically diverse, sequence-defined synthetic polymers. Solid-phase submonomer approaches offer facile access to these types of materials, since they take advantage of readily available synthons. Submonomer approaches to date have been applied to peptidomimetics with oligo-amide backbones. Here we extend the approach to a phosphorous-containing backbone, where N-substituted phosphoramidate oligomers are constructed from a set of amine submonomers, diphenyl H-phosphonate, and cyclohexane diol. The key chemical steps in chain elongation are a chain extension reaction based on H-phosphonate (P III) chemistry, and a side chain attachment step based on the Atherton-Todd reaction. Cheap, stable chemical reagents are used without heating, all reaction times are 30 minutes or less and open to air, and no main-chain protecting groups are required. Phosphoramitoid tetramers and pentamers displaying a variety of side chain functionalities were synthesized by a three-step solid-phase submonomer method, typically with >85% crude purities.