Epoxides biosynthesis

Section 16 14 Epoxide functions are present m a great many natural products and epox ide ring opening is sometimes a key step m the biosynthesis of other sub stances... 

Like the a2ole derivatives, it inhibits the biosynthesis of ergosterol. However, naftifine [65472-88-0] does not inhibit the cytochrome P-450 dependent C-14-demethylase, but the epoxidation of squalene. Squalene epoxidase cataly2es the first step in the conversion of squalene via lanosterol to ergosterol in yeasts and fungi or to cholesterol in mammalian cells. The squalene epoxidase in C. albicans is 150 times more sensitive to naftifine, C2 H2 N, than the en2yme in rat fiver (15). Naftifine is available as a 1% cream. 

The most important oxirane, from an anthropocentric viewpoint, is probably squalene oxide (72), a precursor of lanosterol (73) and thus of the maligned but essential cholesterol (74 Scheme 87) 78MI50501). The cyclization of (72) to (73) represents nucleophilic tr-attack on oxirane carbon cf. Section 5.05.3.4.3(t)()), and the process has also been extensively investigated in vitro (68ACR1). Oxiranes are even more ubiquitous in steroid biosynthesis than had been thought, for a cholesterol epoxide has been shown to be a product of mammalian steroid biosynthesis <81JA6974). 

The ease with which thiophenes are formed in the reaction of acetylenic epoxides " and of polyacetylenes with hydrogen sulfide is of great interest in connection with the biosynthesis of the naturally occurring thiophenes (cf. Section VIH,A) and also of preparative importance. 2-Methyl-l,2-oxido-5-hexene-3-yne (56) in water containing barium hydroxide reacts with HzS at 50°C to give 4-... 

Lanosterol biosynthesis begins with the selective conversion of squalene to its epoxide, (35)-2,3-oxidosqualene/ catalyzed by squalene epoxidase. Molecular 02 provides the source of the epoxide oxygen atom, and NADPH is required, along with a flavin coenzyme. The proposed mechanism involves... 

The second part of lanosterol biosynthesis is catalyzed by oxidosqualene lanosterol cyclase and occurs as shown in Figure 27.14. Squalene is folded by the enzyme into a conformation that aligns the various double bonds for undergoing a cascade of successive intramolecular electrophilic additions, followed by a series of hydride and methyl migrations. Except for the initial epoxide protonation/cyclization, the process is probably stepwise and appears to involve discrete carbocation intermediates that are stabilized by electrostatic interactions with electron-rich aromatic amino acids in the enzyme. 

Squalene epoxidase, a key enzyme in the biosynthesis of cholesterol (9), epoxidizes one face of one of the three different olefins in squalene (7) to give squalene epoxide (8), which then cyclizes eventually to give cholesterol (9) (Scheme 1). The AD of squalene (7)... 

Cytochrome P450 enzymes have been the subject of a number of recent reviews in which their mechanism and scope of action are covered in much detail [1, 6, 10, 11]. The reader is referred to these articles for a more thorough account of the mechanism and reactivity of cytochrome P450 enzymes, while we present a few representative examples of cytochrome P450-catalyzed epoxidation below. The enzymes we chose are all involved in the biosynthesis of polyketide natural products. Polyketides are a large, structurally diverse family of compounds and have provided a wealth of therapeutically useful drugs and drug leads. 

Scheme 10.8 Biosynthesis of epothilone. Individual PKS domains are represented as circles and individual NRPS domains as hexagons. Acyl carrier proteins (ACPs) and thiola-tion domains (T) are posttranslationally modified by a phos-phopantetheinyl group to which the biosynthetic intermediates are covalently bound throughout the chain assembly. The thioesterase domain (TE) cyclizes the fully assembled carbon chain to give the 16-membered lactone. Following dehydration of Cl 2—Cl 3 to give epothilones C and D, the final step in epothilone biosynthesis is the epoxidation of the C12=C13 double bond by the cytochrome P450 enzyme P450epol<. KS ketosyn-thase KS(Y) active-site tyrosine mutant of KS AT acyltransfer-ase C condensation domain A adenylation domain ...

Like the examples above, dihydroxyacetanilide epoxidase (DHAE) uses an olefin as the substrate for epoxidation. Its mechanism, however, is fundamentally different from those of cytochrome P450 or flavin-dependent enzymes. Dihydroxyacetanilide is an intermediate in the biosynthesis of the epoxyquinones LL-C10037a, an antitumor agent produced by the actinomycete Streptomyces LL-C10037 [75, 76], and MM14201, an antibiotic produced by Streptomyces MPP 3051 (Scheme 10.20) [77]. The main structural difference between the two antibiotics lies in the opposite stereochemistry of the oxirane ring. 

S-adenosylmethionine 406 biosynthesis of epoxide 349 bis(trimethylsilyl) peroxide (BTSP) 448, 450 bis(trimethylsilyl)urea 449 bis-oxepane ring 281... 

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