Copper-dioxygen model systems

In an elegant approach, Comba and co-workers initiated molecular-mechanics-based models that allow the rational design of ligand systems which are able to stabilize copper-dioxygen compounds. As a part of this investigation, complexes (241) (r = 0.12),223 (242) (r = 0.31),224 and (243) (r = 0.85)224 were synthesized and the reactivity of copper(I) complexes (Section 6.6.4.2.2(iv)) with dioxygen was investigated. 

This centre consists of a pair of Cu11 ions, which are diamagnetic as a result of antiferromagnetic interaction. It is characterized by a strong absorption at around 330 nm with extinction coefficients in the range 3000 to 5000 dm3 moF1 cm-1. The type 3 centre is associated with redox reactions of dioxygen, as it can transfer two electrons and so bypass the formation of reactive superoxide. A number of model systems for type 3 copper have been reported. 

Multicopper oxidases are typically active in the catalytic one-electron oxidation of a variety of diphenolic, polyphenolic, enediolic, and aminophe-nolic substrates 1,53,166,167). The mechanism of these reactions is complex and, as discussed in Section I, it involves a sequence of four one-electron oxidations of substrate molecules. The radical products of these reactions undergo dismutation, as shown in Scheme 21 for the oxidation of ascorbate to semidehydroascorbate radical 168,169). The substrate binds to the enzymes close to type 1 Cu, whereas the trinuclear cluster is only accessible to dioxygen, or other small molecules. This situation is clearly difficult to reproduce in a model system and for this reason the type of model oxidation reactions that have been studied so far using synthetic trinuclear copper complexes is more related to the activity of type 3 Cu enzymes than multicopper oxidases. Nevertheless, such trinuclear complexes open new perspectives in stereoselective catalysis, because one of the metal centers... 

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