Kirby reaction

The Hofmann degradation is the most well-known C—N bond cleavage reaction, and its value to structural elucidation of alkaloids has been demonstrated (76). Hofmann degradation of tetrahydroberberine methohy-droxide (1) led to two products base A (2), the C-14—N bond cleavage product, and base B (3), the C-6—N bond cleavage product (Scheme 2) (17,18). The former was the major product when 1 was heated under reduced pressure, but the latter, the thermodynamically controlled product, predominated when the reaction was carried out at atmospheric pressure or in an alkaline medium because base A recyclized back to the starting quaternary base through the transannular reaction. In fact, 2 was heated in aqueous alcohol to afford 1. The mechanism of this recyclization reaction was discussed by Kirby et al. (19). 

In the last two decades, there has been a large accumulation of experimental evidence as well as of theoretical interpretations of intramolecular reactions. One notes, however, that attention has been focused on the phenomena of immediate interest to the various specialists. As a consequence of the fact that specialisation implies intensification of knowledge on the one hand but limitation on the other, there has still been insufficient communication and cross-fertilisation between the different schools. This situation is well exemplified by the two most extensive reviews on intramolecular phenomena, namely, that of Kirby (1980), entitled Effective Molarities for Intramolecular Reactions , and that of Winnik (1981a), entitled Cyclisation and the Conformation of Hydrocarbon Chains , which present different approaches and apparently unrelated facts and theories. 

Baldwin s rules. It is noteworthy that the EM5/EM6 ratio is reduced to a factor as small as about 2, which is less than the intrinsic entropic advantage of 5- over 6-membered ring formation. Kirby (1980) in his review lists a large number of EM data for intramolecular nucleophilic additions to carbonyl. Probably because these data derive from laboratories of chemists mainly interested in intramolecular nucleophilic catalysis and its relevance to understanding enzymic catalysis, the great majority of them refer to reactions occurring via 5- and 6-membered transition states. The only example where a 4-membered transition state is involved is (70), whose kinetics were studied... 

Spontaneous decarboxylations of carboxylate ions and hydrolyses of aryl phosphate dianions and aryl sulfate monoanions are much faster in organic solvents than in water (Thomson, 1970 Kemp and Paul, 1970 Bunton et al., 1967 Kirby and Varvoglis, 1967). This solvent effect is consistent with the Hughes-Ingold qualitative solvent theory because these reactions involve dispersion of charge in forming the transition state. 

Introduction of microbiological methods for the determination of amino acids made possible the estimation of the amount of both free and combined amino acids in urine. Dunn et al. (D4), Thompson and Kirby (Tl), Eckhard and Davidson (El), and Woodson et al. (W3) estimated the amount of amino acids liberated in the course of acid or, as in the case of tryptophan determination, alkaline hydrolysis. Microbiological and colorimetric methods used for the determination of certain amino acids present very little opportunity for evaluating the proper quantitative relations between free and combined amino acids, since under the applied condition both combined and free amino acids are equally involved in the reaction. In 1949 Albanese et al. (A3) applied such methods to the quantitative determination of free and combined amino acids in the nondiffusible fraction of urine, and subjected the procedures to broad criticism from just this point of view. 

Obviously, in such cases the CD is acting as a true catalyst in esterolysis. The basic cleavage of trifluoroethyl p-nitrobenzoate by a-CD occurs by both pathways approximately 20% by nucleophilic attack and approximately 80% by general base catalysis (GBC) (Komiyama and Inoue, 1980c). The two processes are discernible because only the former leads to the observable p-nitrobenzoyl-CD. For the ester, Ks = 3.4 mM and kjka = 4.4 for the GBC route (1.25 for the nucleophilic route), and so KTS = 0.77 mM. For reaction within the ester CD complex [28], it was estimated that the effective molarity of the CD hydroxyl anion was 21-210 m (for Br0nsted /3 = 0.4 to 0.6 for GBC). Such values are quite reasonable for intramolecular general base catalysis (Kirby, 1980). 

The factors — or at least some of them — which control reactivity in intramolecular reactions are relevant to enzyme catalysis, which also involves reactions between functional groups brought together in close and precisely defined proximity (Kirby, 1980). This has been an area of lively discussion in the recent literature [for a brief summary and leading references see Paquette et al. (1990)]. The main difficulty in making generalizations about the dependence of reactivity on geometry based on results from systems in which proximity is covalently enforced lies in the constraints imposed by particular systems. These may well affect reactivity... 

Fig. 27 Reaction coordinates for six axial aryl tetrahydropyranyl acetals [96] normalized on to a common scale (see the text) and superimposed on the reaction coordinate for a parent alkoxy derivative (broken curve). Reprinted with permission from Jones and Kirby (1984). Copyright 1984 American Chemical Society.

Reference reaction is attack on 2,4-dinitrophenyl acetate by RCOO- of pK, 2.4 (k2 = 3.3 x 10-3 s-1 based on a short extrapolation using P = 1.0 Jencks and Gilchrist, 1968). The reaction measured is the subsequent hydrolysis of the mixed anhydride the observed value thus sets only a lower limit for EM (Fersht and Kirby, 1967b, 1968a)... 

Fersht and Kirby, 1968b. Formation of the anhydride is rate determining here. The reference reaction is that of phenyl acetate with a carboxylate anion of pK, 3.11 (see note a) y Kemp and Thibault, 1968. The reference reaction is that of RCOO- with phenyl benzoate (see note j)... 

Calculation of EM. The reference intramolecular reaction is nucleophilic attack by the anion of a carboxylic acid of pK, 3.15 on 2-phenoxy-l,3,2-dioxaphosphorinan-2-oxide. The rate constant for this reaction can be calculated as 7.67 x 10-10 dm3 mol 1 s-1 at 39° using the formula derived by Khan and Kirby (1970), and allows the direct calculation of the EM for the corresponding intramolecular reaction (COO-—P3—6n of A.5.5). The EM is assumed to be the same for the corresponding endocyclic reaction of the diphenyl ester anion (A.5.6), and has been shown not to differ significantly for endocyclic and exocyclic displacements (Bromilow etal., 1972)... 

J Steffans et al., 1973, 1975. The reference reaction is the attack of the anion of a carboxylic acid of pK, 3.91 on methyl 2,4-dinitrophenyl phosphate at 39° (Kirby and Younas, 1970). The intramolecular reaction is corrected for the better leaving group using y LO=1.26 (Khan et al., 1970), and to 39° using the activation energy measured for the intermolecular reaction with acetate (Kirby and Younas, 1970). 

Steffens et al., 1975. The rate of the same reference reaction (note J) was extrapolated from 60° to 75° using an activation energy of 22 kcal mol-1 (Kirby and Younas, 1970), and the same correction for leaving group applied as in j. The pK, of the substrate carboxyl group was estimated to be 4.4... 

The reference intermolecular reaction for the aliphatic compounds is the formation of ethyl acetate from ethanol and acetic acid measured under the same conditions (20% ethanol-water, ionic strength 0.4 M) by Storm and Koshland (1972a). The esterification of benzoic acid in methanol at 25° is 290 times slower than that of acetic acid (Kirby, 1972), so this factor is used to correct the EM s, calculated otherwise in the same way, for the hydroxybenzoic acids. For the phenolic acids see notes m and n b Rate constants are in units of dm3 mol-1 s-1 c Storm and Koshland, 1972a d Storm and Koshland, 1972b Bunnett and Hauser, 1965... 

Loran and Williams, 1977. The reference intermolecular reaction is the attack of pyridine on methyl o-nitrophenyl phosphate (Kirby and Younas, 1970). Corrections for the conversion to a diaryl ester and a p-nitrophenyl leaving group are assumed to cancel out. Temperature correction uses E, = 14.8 kcal mol-1, as measured for the reference reaction 4 Lazarus et al., 1980... 

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