Amide bonds, chemical hydrolysis

An alternative approach to peptide sequencing uses a dry method in which the whole sequence is obtained from a mass spectrum, thereby obviating the need for multiple reactions. Mass spec-trometrically, a chain of amino acids breaks down predominantly through cleavage of the amide bonds, similar to the result of chemical hydrolysis. From the mass spectrum, identification of the molecular ion, which gives the total molecular mass, followed by examination of the spectrum for characteristic fragment ions representing successive amino acid residues allows the sequence to be read off in the most favorable cases. 

Johnson, T. W. Kostic, N. M. Steric effect on the rate of hydrolysis by Pd(II) complexes of the C-terminal amide bond in a series of dipeptides Ac-Met-AA, American Chemical Society, Washington, D. C. In Book of Abstracts, 212th ACS National Meeting, Orlando, FL, August 25-29, 1996. 

Proteolytic degradation of a protein is characterized by hydrolysis of one or more peptide (amide) bonds in the protein backbone, generally resulting in loss of biological activity. Hydrolysis is usually promoted by the presence of trace quantities of proteolytic enzymes, but can also be caused by some chemical influences. 

Like the simple aliphatic secondary amides discussed above, structurally more-complex compounds may also be expected to undergo hydrolysis. However, very few such results are available, implying either that xenobio-tics are relatively stable, or that they have been insufficiently studied. It seems that the former reason is the more likely, since the amide bond, in general, is chemically stable and is metabolized over only a narrow range of structures (see, e.g., the /V-alkyl-substituted amides discussed above). Some of the few reported examples of structurally complex xenobiotics that undergo amide hydrolysis are discussed below. 

The salicylimides (4.169) were found to be markedly more resistant to chemical hydrolysis than 4.166. These compounds were hydrolyzed exclusively at the distal amide bond, meaning that hydrolysis produced only sali-cylamide (4.170) and not salicylic acid. This behavior has been ascribed to steric hindrance by the 2-OH group. An intramolecular general base catalysis does not seem to be involved since, as stated, the salicylamides were less reactive than the corresponding benzamides. The rate of plasma-catalyzed hydrolysis of the A-acylsalicylamides was also dependent on the nature of... 

We will now consider supidimide (5.66) as an example of a molecule containing a six-membered lactam ring. The piperidin-2-one ring of this potential sedative underwent slow chemical hydrolysis in buffer solution to yield 5.67, but was resistant to metabolic hydrolysis. The other amide bond was stable [175], Supidimide was primarily metabolized by oxidation of the pi-peridin-2-one ring to yield a glutarimide ring, which then was hydrolyzed as described in Sect. 4.4. 

The intrinsic inertness of the peptide bond is demonstrated by a study of the chemical hydrolysis of N-benzoyl-Gly-Phe (hippurylphenylalanine, 6.37) [67], a reference substrate for carboxypeptidase A (EC 3.4.17.1). In pH 9 borate buffer at 25°, the first-order rate constant for hydrolysis of the peptide bond ( chem) was 1-3 x 10-10 s-1, corresponding to a tm value of 168 y. This is a very slow reaction indeed, confirming the intrinsic stability of the peptide bond. Because the analytical method used was based on monitoring the released phenylalanine, no information is available on the competitive hydrolysis of the amide bond to liberate benzoic acid. 

The chemical stability of the amide bond is high. When the surfactant containing an amide bond was subjected to 1 M sodium hydroxide during five days at room temperature, only 5% of the amide surfactant was cleaved. The corresponding experiment performed in 1 M HCl resulted in no hydrolysis. The amide bond was, however, found to be slowly hydrolyzed when lipase from Candida antarctica or peptidase was used as catalyst. Amidase and lipase from Mucor miehei was found to be ineffective. Despite the very high chemical stability, the amide surfactant biodegrades by a similar path in the... 

The COOH-terminal amino acid of a peptide or protein may be analyzed by either chemical or enzymatic methods. The chemical methods are similar to the procedures for NH2-terminal analysis. COOH-terminal amino acids are identified by hydrazinolysis or are reduced to amino alcohols by lithium borohydride. The modified amino acids are released by acid hydrolysis and identified by chromatography. Both of these chemical methods are difficult, and clear-cut results are not readily obtained. The method of choice is peptide hydrolysis catalyzed by carboxypeptidases A and B. These two enzymes catalyze the hydrolysis of amide bonds at the COOH-terminal end of a peptide (Equation E2.3), since carboxypeptidase action requires the presence of a free a-carboxyl group in the substrate. 

The cellular effects of FTase inhibition with 3 were observed with concentrations 5000-50,000 higher than the in vitro IC50 for FTase inhibition by carboxylic acid Id. Incomplete hydrolysis of the lactone in vivo could be partially responsible for this discrepancy in activity. However, it was also found that the lactone prodrug used in the context of the doubly reduced peptide isostere, i.e. 3, was chemically unstable at physiological pH. Rapid cyclization to the diketopiperazine 5 significantly reduced FTase inhibitory activity.40 Simple N-alkylation of the reactive secondary amine to give 4 led to loss of activity vs. FTase. To simultaneously protect the compound from both metabolic inactivation (via peptidases) and chemical instability, isosteric replacements of the second amide bond other than methylene-amino were explored. Since the second amide bond in the tetrapeptide inhibitors could be reduced without loss of activity in vitro, peptide bond replacements which were both rigid (olefin) and flexible (alkyl, ether) were synthesized. 

In addition to the widely reported techniques of amide bond formation, transesterification, and hydrolysis, enzymic enantioselective oxidation is also used in the synthesis of single isomer drugs. Patel described the elficient oxidation of benzopyran (75), an intermediate in thesynthesisof potassium channel openers (123). The transformationwas ef-fected w i t h a cell suspension of MortiereUa raman-niana with glucose over a 48-h period, the isolated product (77) was obtained in a 76%yield with an optical purity of 97%and a chemical purity of 98%, as shown in Pig. 18.32. 

Fig. 3 A tumor-targeted polymer-drug conjugate. The major elements include (i) a polymeric drug-carrier that is water-soluble, bicompatible or biodegradable, non-immunogenic (ii) targeting moieties (iii) a linker between a drug and the carrier. The linker can be a) a chemical bond such as ester or amide. An ester bond is more stable at lysosomal pH than at plasma pH (7.4) while an amide bond is stable at both lysosomal and plasma pH b) an oligopeptide linker that is degradable by specific enzymatic hydrolysis and c) an acid labile linker that is degradable at lysosomal pH but stable at plasma pH.

The process of xenobiotic metabolism contains two phases commonly known as Phase I and Phase II. The major reactions included in Phase I are oxidation, reduction, and hydrolysis, as shown in Figure 10.1. Among the representative oxidation reactions are hydroxylation, dealkylation, deamination, and sulfoxide formation, whereas reduction reactions include azo reduction and addition of hydrogen. Such reactions as splitting of ester and amide bonds are common in hydrolysis. During Phase I, a chemical may acquire a reaction group such as OH, NH2, COOH, or SH. 

Hydrolysis of the amide bond is the best-known reaction of this functional group, in the biological context (digestion of proteins by proteinases) as well as in the organic chemical context (aqueous hydrolysis in 6 M hydrochloric acid for 12 h at 120 °C or by dilute alkali). However, the essential role of a catalyst is made clear by the fact that a peptide dissolved in pure water survives unchanged for many months, even under reflux. 

The peptide bond is an amide containing an sp carbon atom. The amide is stabilized by electron resonance between the nitrogen and oxygen atoms. The uncatalyzed, or chemical hydrolysis of a peptide bond is illustrated at the top of Figure 10. The most difficult structure to form, or the transition state, consists of the tetrahedral carbon. This would be the structure at the top of the energy diagram in Figure 1. 

The work-up conditions for the condensation step (Scheme 12.6) were also modified to accommodate commercial operations. Sodium carbonate was used in the initial chemical development pilot plant batches to absorb the by-product HCl from the reaction. The quantities of carbon dioxide produced from the neutralization made this approach impractical in a commercial plant. To complicate matters, the amide bond formed during the condensation was subject to hydrolysis under strongly acidic conditions. Solid sodium acetate was added to the reaction mixture as a buffer to address this issue. A significant quantity of the diacetylation product (18) was also detected in the reaction mixture before work-up. However, this material rapidly hydrolyzes to the condensation product (6) and 2-chloronicotinic acid upon exposure to water (Scheme... 

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