Amino groups reductive methylation procedure

Figure 9. Digestion of casein and chemically modified caseins by bovine a-chy-motrypsin. Amino groups of casein were reductively methylated and the hydrolysis by a-chymotrypsin followed with time., unmodified casein , reductively methylated casein—33% modified , reductively methylated casein—52% modified. The casein concentrations were 0.2 mg/ml in 0.02M borate buffer at pH 8.2 and the a-chymotrypsin was 3.2 fjig/ml. The hydrolysis was followed by the procedure of Lin et al. (62) [Figure from Ref. 56].

The classical procedure for the reaction involves heating the alkyl halide (usually the chloride or bromide) with sodium or potassium cyanide in metha-nolic or ethanolic solution. The method is clearly of value for the extension of the carbon chain by one carbon atom, since the cyano group may be converted into a carboxyl group by hydrolysis (Section 5.11.2, p. 671) or into an amino-methyl group (—CH2-NH2) by reduction (Section 5.16.1, p. 771), or into a formyl group by controlled reduction to the imine followed by hydrolysis (Section 5.7.4, p. 594). ... 

There is little recent information in this area. The tine structure of 3-acetoxy-l, 4-dinitro-2-piperazinol (14) has been elucidated by X-ray analysis.1212 Treatment of 5,6-dichloro-3-nitro-2-pyrazinamine (15) with refluxing ethanolic sodium cyanide for 4 days induced displacement of the nitro by a cyano group as well as ethanoly-sis of one chloro substituent to afford 3-amino-6-chloro-5-ethoxy-2-pyrazinecar-bonitrile (16) in 55% yield.1313 L-Methyl-4-(/>nitrobenzoyl)pipcrazine (17) gave I -(/ -aminobenzoyl)-4-methy I piperazine (18) (75%) on refluxing in ethanolic hydrazine hydrate with a little Raney nickel catalyst for 6 h 135, cf 1032 other reduction procedures have been reported.496,1741... 

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