Glucoseamine

Hen egg-white lysozyme catalyzes the hydrolysis of various oligosaccharides, especially those of bacterial cell walls. The elucidation of the X-ray structure of this enzyme by David Phillips and co-workers (Ref. 1) provided the first glimpse of the structure of an enzyme-active site. The determination of the structure of this enzyme with trisaccharide competitive inhibitors and biochemical studies led to a detailed model for lysozyme and its hexa N-acetyl glucoseamine (hexa-NAG) substrate (Fig. 6.1). These studies identified the C-O bond between the D and E residues of the substrate as the bond which is being specifically cleaved by the enzyme and located the residues Glu 37 and Asp 52 as the major catalytic residues. The initial structural studies led to various proposals of how catalysis might take place. Here we consider these proposals and show how to examine their validity by computer modeling approaches. 

Urea 198 was prepared from enantiomerically pure polyfunctLonal glucoseamine hydrochloride, which is readily accessible from chitin as a component of the natural chiral pool it appeared to be an alternative backbone structure supplanting the trans-l,2-diamocyclohexane of Schiff base catalyst 42 (Figure 6.58). 

The saccharide blocks are obtained by enzymatic (pronase) degradation of ovomucoid extracted from hen egg white followed by column chromatography fractionation and purification Thus two glycoamino acids Oq and Op are obtained. For instance, the (3 fraction (Op) has a molecular weight 3 200 and contains 16 saccharide residues 1 residue of galactose in terminal position, 5 of mannose and 10 of N-acetyl glucoseamine (Fig. 39). 

Another synthesis of (-)-allosamizoline (8) was also carried out using the glucoseamine derivative 44 by an intramolecular cycloaddition of a nitrile oxide to an olefin as a key step (Scheme 5). ° lodination of 44 followed by reductive 3-elimination using zinc in THF afforded the 5-enofuranose 46, whose reaction with ethanethiol in cone. HCl followed by silylation with TBSOTf afforded 47. Dethioacetalization of 47 with HgCl2-CaC03 followed by treatment of the resulting aldehyde with NH2OH afforded the oxime 50, which underwent intramolecular cycloaddition to produce the isoxazoline 51. Alternatively, treatment... 

Chiral imidazoUdin-2-thione or 2-one were prepared from o-glucoseamine by reaction with o,o -disubstituted arylisothiocyanates to give 39 which can be cycHzed to 40 [76]. Thus, a variety of derivatives were prepared carrying different aryl groups and as a consequence of hindered rotation, some of them exist as stable rotamers (Fig. 7). Treatment of 39 with acetic anhydride in pyridine at low temperature gave the respective per-O-acetyl derivative imidazolidine thione, which upon elimination of acetic acid gave the imidazoline thion 41 as a mixture of atropisomers [76]. 

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