Enzymic synthesis, of glycosyl esters

Occurrence and Enzymic Synthesis of Glycosyl Esters of Nncleotides... 

Proanthocyanidins and Procyanidins - In a classical study Bate-Smith ( ) used the patterns of distribution of the three principal classes of phenolic metabolites, which are found in the leaves of plants, as a basis for classification. The biosynthesis of these phenols - (i) proanthocyanidins (ii) glycosylated flavonols and (iii) hydroxycinnamoyl esters - is believed to be associated with the development in plants of the capacity to synthesise the structural polymer lignin by the diversion from protein synthesis of the amino-acids L-phenylalanine and L-tyro-sine. Vascular plants thus employ one or more of the p-hydroxy-cinnarayl alcohols (2,3, and 4), which are derived by enzymic reduction (NADH) of the coenzyme A esters of the corresponding hydroxycinnamic acids, as precursors to lignin. The same coenzyme A esters also form the points of biosynthetic departure for the three groups of phenolic metabolites (i, ii, iii), Figure 1. 

The several known enzymic mechanisms for the synthesis of sugar nucleotides have been previously reviewed. It was pointed out that the mechanism of epimerization, whereby the glycosyl moiety of the glycosyl ester of a nucleotide is transformed into one having a different group-configuration, was obscure. This process may be exemplified by one of the first such enzymic interconversions to be discovered ... 

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