Catalysis continued acylation

The term acid catalysis is often taken to mean proton catalysis ( specific acid catalysis ) in contrast to general acid catalysis. In this sense, acid-catalyzed hydrolysis begins with protonation of the carbonyl O-atom, which renders the carbonyl C-atom more susceptible to nucleophilic attack. The reaction continues as depicted in Fig. 7. l.a (Pathway a) with hydration of the car-bonium ion to form a tetrahedral intermediate. This is followed by acyl cleavage (heterolytic cleavage of the acyl-0 bond). Pathway b presents an mechanism that can be observed in the presence of concentrated inorganic acids, but which appears irrelevant to hydrolysis under physiological conditions. The same is true for another mechanism of alkyl cleavage not shown in Fig. 7.Fa. All mechanisms of proton-catalyzed ester hydrolysis are reversible. 

A prominent example of chemoenzymatic catalysis in bio-organic chemistry is the dynamic kinetic resolution (DKR) of secondary alcohols (Scheme 9) [94, 95] and amines [96-99], In this process, a lipase is employed as an enantioselective acylation catalyst, and a metal-based catalyst ensures continuous racemization of the unreactive enantiomer. 

An interesting two-step KR in the acetylation oftrons-l,2-cyclohexanediol was realized. First by continuous-flow lipase catalysis in SCCO2, (R, R) -2-acetoxycyclohexane-l-ol [122] was obtained with moderate enantiomer selectivity, while the second acylation step proved to be highly enantiomer selective and gave pure (R,R)-24k. 

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