Thermolabile Protecting Groups (TPGs) are applied in chemical synthesis when mild deprotection conditions are required.
Their removal merely consists of increasing temperature, which leads to deprotection of the protected sensitive part of a molecule.
Most of these groups are removed on the basis of intramolecular cyclization depending either on nucleophilicity or configuration.
The shortest deprotection time with high stability in lower temperatures has been found for 2-pyridyl TPGs[1] that are applied to protect a hydroxyl group,[2] carboxylic acid[3] or a phosphate esters.
[5] TPGs are applied as an element that increases the specificity of starters in PCR; they may also be used in microarray construction.