Hydrolysis nucleophilic acyl substitution esters

Ester hydrolysis is the most studied and best understood of all nucleophilic acyl substitutions. Esters are fairly stable in neutral aqueous media but are cleaved when heated with water in the presence of strong acids or bases. The hydrolysis of esters in dilute aqueous acid is the reverse of the Eischer esterification (Sections 15.8 and 19.14) ... 

Nucleophilic acyl substitutions at the ester carbonyl group are summarized m Table 20 5 on page 849 Esters are less reactive than acyl chlorides and acid anhydrides Nude ophilic acyl substitution m esters especially ester hydrolysis has been extensively mves tigated from a mechanistic perspective Indeed much of what we know concerning the general topic of nucleophilic acyl substitution comes from studies carried out on esters The following sections describe those mechanistic studies... 

The mechanism of acid catalyzed ester hydrolysis is presented m Figure 20 4 It IS precisely the reverse of the mechanism given for acid catalyzed ester formation m Section 19 14 Like other nucleophilic acyl substitutions it proceeds m two stages A... 

Convincing evidence that ester hydrolysis in base proceeds by the second of these two paths namely nucleophilic acyl substitution has been obtained from several sources In one experiment ethyl propanoate labeled with 0 m the ethoxy group was hydrolyzed On isolating the products all the 0 was found m the ethyl alcohol there was no 0 enrichment m the sodium propanoate... 

Lster hydrolysis occurs through a typical nucleophilic acyl substitution pathway in which hydroxide ion is the nucleophile that adds to the ester carbonyl group to give a tetrahedral intermediate. Loss of alkoxide ion then gives a carboxylic acid, which is deprotonated to give the carboxylate ion. Addition of aqueous HC1 in a separate step after the saponification is complete then pro-tonates the carboxylate ion and gives the carboxylic acid (Figure 21.17). 

Ester hydrolysis is common in biological chemistry, particularly in the digestion of dietary fats and oils. We ll save a complete discussion of the mechanistic details of fat hydrolysis until Section 29.2 but will note for now that the reaction is catalyzed by various lipase enzymes and involves two sequential nucleophilic acyl substitution reactions. The first is a trcinsesterificatiori reaction in which an alcohol gioup on the lipase adds to an ester linkage in the tat molecule to give a tetrahedral intermediate that expels alcohol and forms an acyl... 

Amide hydrolysis is common in biological chemistry. Just as the hydrolysis of esters is the initial step in the digestion of dietary fats, the hydrolysis of amides is the initial step in the digestion of dietary proteins. The reaction is catalyzed by protease enzymes and occurs by a mechanism almost identical to that we just saw for fat hydrolysis. That is, an initial nucleophilic acyl substitution of an alcohol group in the enzyme on an amide linkage in the protein gives an acyl enzyme intermediate that then undergoes hydrolysis. 

Nucleophilic Acyl Substitution 960 Mechanism 20-1 Nucleophilic Acyl Substitution in the Basic Hydrolysis of an Ester 960... 

The mechanism of ester hydrolysis in acid (shown in Mechanism 22.8) is the reverse of the mechanism of ester synthesis from carboxylic acids (Mechanism 22.6). Thus, the mechanism consists of the addition of the nucleophile and the elimination of the leaving group, the two steps common to all nucleophilic acyl substitutions, as well as several proton transfers, because the reaction is acid-catalyzed. 

Similar experiments have indicated the reversible formation of tetrahedral intermediates in hydrolysis of other esters, amides, anhydrides, and acid chlorides, and are the basis of the general mechanism we have shown for nucleophilic acyl substitution. 

Knowing how the protein chain is folded is a key element in understanding how an enzyme catalyzes a reaction. Biochemical processes are usually related to the core reaction types of organic chemistry and involve similar key intermediates. The reactions, however, are much faster and more selective. In proposing an enzyme-catalyzed mechanism for a reaction such as amide or ester hydrolysis, it is customary to assume it proceeds by way of a tetrahedral intermediate, then modify the usual nucleophilic acyl substitution mechanism by assigning various catalytic functions to selected amino acid side chains of the enzyme. 

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