Exogenous electrophiles

Fig. 14. Manifold of reactive species produced from the reaction of a heme group with oxygen and two reducing equivalents. The rate of conversion of A to B limits the lifetime (and therefore reactivity) of the Fe peroxo anion. The rate of formation of the ferryl species C via the Fe -OOH complex B competes with the intramolecular hydroxylation reaction to give hydroxyheme. Reactions of the Fe -hydroperoxy complex B with exogenous electrophilic substrates must compete with conversion of the intermediate to both C and meso-hydroxyheme. The Fe -OOH complex B can also be formed directly with H2O,.

Perdeuteration of the methylene linker affords a relatively kinetically stable complex, which allows for the monitoring of exogenous substrate oxidations. When (7) is exposed to cold (—95 °C) acetone solutions of the lithium salts of para-substituted phenolates, clean conversion to the corresponding o-catechols is observed. Deuterium kinetic isotope effects (KIEs) for these hydroxylation reactions of 1.0 are observed, which is consistent with an electrophilic attack of the peroxo ligand on the arene ring. An electrophilic aromatic substitution is also consistent with the observation that lithium jc-methoxy-phenolate reacts substantially faster with (7) than lithium / -chloro-phenolate. Furthermore, a plot of observed reaction rates vs. / -chloro-phenolate concentration demonstrated that substrate coordination to the metal center is occurring prior to hydroxylation, and thus may be an important feature in these phenolate o-hydroxylation reactions. 

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