Fructose stereogenic centers

While the lyases that transfer a pyruvate unit form only a single stereogenic center, the group of dihydroxyacetone-phosphate-(DHAP, 41)-dependent aldolases create two new asymmetric centers, one each at the termini of the new C-C bond. A particular advantage for synthetic endeavors is the fact that Nature has evolved a full set of four stereochemically-complementary aldolases [189] (Scheme 6) for the retro-aldol cleavage of diastereoisomeric ketose 1-phosphates— D-fructose 1,6-bisphosphate (42 FruA), D-tagatose 1,6-bisphosphate (43 TagA), L-fuculose 1-phosphate (44 FucA), and L-rhamnulose 1-phosphate (45) aldolase (RhuA). In the direction of synthesis this formally allows the... 

Larger organic molecules can have two, three, or even hundreds of stereogenic centers. Propoxyphene and ephedrine each contain two stereogenic centers, and fructose, a simple carbohydrate, has three. 

The family of D-ketoses, shown in Figure 27.5, is formed from dihydroxyacetone by adding a new carbon (bonded to H and OH) between C2 and C3. Having a carbonyl group at C2 decreases the number of stereogenic centers in these monosaccharides, so that there are only four D-ketohexoses. The most common naturally occurring ketose is D-fructose. 

The four enzymes of the family of dihydroxyacetone phosphate (DHAP)-dependent aldolases fructose-1,6-bisphosphate aldolase (FruA, EC 4.1.2.13), fuculose-1-phosphate aldolase (FucA, EC 4.1.2.17), rhamnulose-1-phosphate aldolase (RhuA, EC 4.1.2.19) and tagatose-1,6-bisphosphate aldolase (TagA, EC 4.1.2.40), catalyze in vivo the reversible asymmetric addition of DHAP to d-glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate (G3P) or L-lactaldehyde, leading to four complementary diastereomers. DHAP-dependent aldolases create two new stereogenic centers, with excellent enantio and diastereoselectivity in many cases. These enzymes are quite specific for the donor substrate DHAP, but accept a wide range of aldehydes as acceptor substrates. There are only two fructose-6-phosphate aldolase isoenzymes reported to be able to use dihydroxyacetone (DHA) as donor substrate (Schiirmann and Sprenger 2001). 

Aldolases have been studied as catalysts for monosaccharide synthesis for nearly 40 years. The best studied member of the group is a fructose-1,6-diphosphate (FDP) aldolase from rabbit muscle (RAMA, E.C. 4.1.2.13) (20), In vivo, this enzyme catalyzes the reversible condensation of D-glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate and dihydroxy acetone phosphate (DHAP) to generate FDP (Scheme 1). In the synthetic direction, the enzyme catalyzes the formation of two new stereogenic centers with absolute stereospecificity the stereochemistry of the new vicinal diol is always D-... 

Aldol addition of DHAP to aldehydes is catalyzed by DHAP-dependent aldolases. Two stereogenic centers are formed and therefore four possible stereoisomers can be obtained. Although nature has evolved a set of four distinct stereocomplementary types (Scheme 10.3), so far, only three of the known DHAP-dependent aldolases, namely the D-fructose-l,6-bisphosphate aldolase (FruA), L-rhamnulose-1-phosphate aldolase (RhuA), and L-fuculose-1-phosphate aldolase (FucA), have found broad synthetic applicability due to their high stereoselectivity and broad acceptor tolerance [5,77]. DHAP-dependent aldolases are highly selective for the nucleophilic substrate DHAP, tolerating only few isosteric modifications [84-88]. 

---