Isotope effects acetaldehyde oxidation

Two types of inhibitors, pyrazoles and imidazoles (with E-NAD+) and iso-butyramide (with E-NADH), form tight ternary complexes with E-coenzyme, allowing single turnover to be observed (through photometry at 290 nm or fluorescence caused by NADH) and thus titration of the active sites (see Section 9.2.3.). Pyrazole and isobutyramide are kinetically competitive with ethanol and acetaldehyde, respectively. If the reaction E + NADH + aldehyde is run in the presence of a high concentration of pyrazole, the complex E-NAD+ formed by dissociation of alcohol immediately binds pyrazole for a single turnover only. Under favorable conditions, a single NADH oxidation can be observed by stopped-flow techniques to find a kcat of about 150 s 1 and a deuterium isotope effect kD 4 as expected (see Section 9.2.5). 

Isotope effects can be used to choose the most likely path. When ethylene is oxidized in deuterated water, the acetaldehyde contains no deuterium hence, all four hydrogens in the acetaldehyde must come from the ethylene. Thus, if the slow step of the reaction involves the formation of acetaldehyde, the activated complex for this slow step would involve a hydride transfer, and a primary isotope effect would be expected when deuterated ethylene is used. Actually, the isotope effect kn/ko was found to be only 1.07. In Paths 1 and 3, the slow step is, respectively, the decomposition of a 7r-complex and a a-complex to product, and they would be expected to display a primary isotope effect. However, in Path 2, the rate-determining step is the rearrangement of a 7r-complex to a (T-complex. Since no carbon-hydrogen bonds are broken, no primary isotope effect would be expected. Thus, Path 2 is consistent with all the experimental facts. Paths involving oxypalladation adducts, first suggested by the Russian workers (32), are now generally accepted (19, 28, 32). 

A deuterium kinetic isotope effect of 6.1 was observed in the oxidation of acetaldehyde by permanganate in aqueous HC104, implying a hydride... 

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