Back-exchange

Enolizalion of conjugated or /3,y-unsatiirated enones and dienones in O-deiiterated solvents facilitates the introduction of deuterium labels into positions as far as three and five carbon atoms away from a given ketone function. Exchange of the activated hydrogens in androst-4-en-3-one (12) provides a good illustration of the potential of this method. Saturation of the double bond (section V) in the deuterated enone (13) followed by back exchange of the a-deuteriums (section II-B) proves to be an excellent method for the preparation of 6,6-d2-5a-androstan-3-one (15). ... 

This reaction is especially well suited for the reduction of tertiary aldehydes which have no activated a-hydrogens. In this case only two deuteriums are incorporated in place of the carbonyl oxygen. The reduction of 12-methoxypodocarpa-8,ll,13-trien-17-al (82) provides an illustrative example. After back exchange of the aromatic deuteriums, the isotopic purity of the resulting dideuterio reduction product (83) is 92%. ... 

After completion of the reaction, the mixture is diluted with water, extracted with ether and the residue from the ether phase purified by chromatography and/or recrystallization. If the substrate contains aromatic protons, the reduction procedure is repeated in protic medium to back exchange deuteriums incorporated into the aromatic ring. 

When the l<, 2( -d2-labeled product (129) is subjected to alkaline equilibration to back exchange the 2i -label (for experimental conditions see section IT-B), the crystalline l< -di-4,4-dimethyl-5a-androstan-3-one (130) exhibits 6% do and 94% d isotopic composition. ... 

Deuteriums in the enolizable positions of a,/3-unsaturated keto substrates are unaffected during the course of the reduction. This extends the applicability of this procedure to the preparation of y-labeled ketones by subjecting the substrates to hydrogen-deuterium exchange (section ll-C) prior to reduction. This technique has been utilized for the preparation of the y-labeled ketones (156), (157) and (158). " The deuteriums in the a-positions of these ketones are back exchanged (section 11-B) after the reduction. 

A recent modification of this technique utilizes A,A-d2-propylamine as the solvent for the lithium reduction, thereby eliminating the inconveniences associated with the preparation and handling of liquid deuterioammonia. Under these conditions the reaction can be carried out at room temperature and less overreduction of the carbonyl group is observed. For example, the reduction of A" -3-keto steroids (159) under these conditions, followed by back exchange in protic media, leads to the corresponding 5a-di-3-ketones (160) which exhibit good isotopic purity. ... 

Reductive opening of the cyclopropyl ring in 9j5,19-cycloandrostan-ll-one (234) has been achieved by treatment with a large excess of sodium in iso-propanol-OD. Analysis of the product for isotopic purity after oxidation to the corresponding ketone and base-catalyzed back exchange of the 9a-deuterium [(235) (236)] shows 19% do and 10% 62 isotopic impurities. The 10% 62 product is probably due to incomplete back exchange. 

Many ionic liquids are based on N,N-dialkylimidazolium cations (BMI) which form salts that exist as liquids at, or below, room temperature. Their properties are also influenced by the nature of the anion e. g. BF T PFg. The C-2(H) in imidazole is fairly labile but the C-4(H) and the C-5(H) are less so. Under microwave-enhanced conditions it is therefore possible to introduce three deuterium atoms (Scheme 13.4). As hydrogen isotope exchange is a reversible reaction this means that the three deuterium atoms can be readily exchanged under microwave irradiation. For storage purpose it might be best to back-exchange the C-2(D) so that the 4,5-[2H2] isotopomer can be safely stored as the solid without any dangers of deuterium loss. The recently... 

The tritiated version could be prepared from tritiated formic acid which we had prepared at high specific activity (2.5 Ci mmol-1) by a metal-catalyzed hydrogen-tritium exchange procedure using T2 gas. The material can be stored either as a solid or as a solution if the latter any release of tritium by back exchange can be easily monitored by 3H NMR spectroscopy. In our experience very little exchange occurs over several weeks of storage [51]. 

The lifetime of a zeolitic alkylation catalyst depends on the concentration of Brpnsted acid sites. This has been shown by Nivarthy et al. (78), who used a series of zeolites H-BEA with varied concentrations of back-exchanged sodium ions. The sodium decreased the concentration of Brpnsted acid centers, which led to a concomitant decrease in the measured catalyst lifetime during alkylation. 

The peptides generated by proteolysis are separated using reverse-phase HPLC to minimize mass overlap and ionization suppression caused by ion competition in the electrospray source [40]. The optimized LC gradient parameters efficiently separate peptides while minimizing loss of deuterium through back exchange with solvent. Increased sensitivity can be achieved by using capillary HPLC columns and nanoelectrospray methods [47]. 

The injector, columns and valves reside in a low temperature chamber to minimize the loss of deuterium by back exchange (Fig. 12.2). The quenched protein solution is pumped in series through a column containing an immobilized protease and a trap column to capture the peptide fragments. The gradient pump is activated following digestion and the peptides captured on the trap column are eluted and separated over an analytical reverse-phase HPLC column directly into the mass spectrometer. 

Although most enzyme exchange studies have been investigated at equilibrium, the back exchange of labeled product while the reaction is proceeding in the forward direction can provide valuable information about enzymic catalysis. Under favorable conditions, one may utilize such isotope exchange data to learn about the order of product release and the presence of covalent enzyme-substrate compounds. One of the first systems to be characterized in this way was glucose-6-phos-phatase . ... 

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