Mechanism base-catalyzed ester hydrolysis

Fig. 7.2. a) The most common mechanism of base-catalyzed ester hydrolysis, namely specific base catalysis (HCT catalysis) with tetrahedral intermediate and acyl cleavage. Not shown here are an W mechanism with alkyl cleavage observed with some tertiary alkyl esters, and an 5n2 mechanism with alkyl cleavage sometimes observed with primary alkyl esters, particularly methyl esters, b) Schematic mechanism of general base catalysis in ester hydrolysis. Intermolecular catalysis (bl) and intramolecular catalysis (b2). c) The base-catalyzed hydrolysis of esters is but a particular case of nucleophilic attack. Intermolecular (cl) and intramolecular (c2). d) Spontaneous (uncatalyzed) hydrolysis. This becomes possible when the R moiety is... 

Fig. 4.72. The mechanisms for general acid and general base-catalyzed ester hydrolysis.

Kinetic Considerations. Extensive kinetic and mechanistic studies have been made on the esterification of carboxyHc acids since Berthelot and Saint-GiHes first studied the esterification of acetic acid (18). Although ester hydrolysis is catalyzed by both hydrogen and hydroxide ions (19,20), a base-catalyzed esterification is not known. A number of mechanisms for acid- and base-catalyzed esterification have been proposed (4). One possible mechanism for the bimolecular acid-catalyzed ester hydrolysis and esterification is shown in equation 2 (6). 

Active Figure 21.8 MECHANISM Mechanism of acid-catalyzed ester hydrolysis. The forward reaction is a hydrolysis the back-reaction is a Fischer esterification and is thus the reverse of Figure 21.4. Sign in afwww.thomsonedu.com to see a simulation based on this figure and to take a short quiz. 

Exercise 18-23 a. Develop a mechanism for ester interchange between ethanol and methyl ethanoate catalyzed by alkoxide that is consistent with the mechanism of base-induced ester hydrolysis. 

Of the mechanisms of carboxylic ester hydrolysis, that for the base-catalyzed reaction is the best understood. It generally proceeds by bimolecular attack of hydroxide ion on the carbonyl group, forming a tetrahedral intermediate, followed by elimination with acyl-oxygen fission ... 

Extensive studies of AChE have resulted in the purification and amino acid sequencing of the enzyme from several sources as well as the description of its quaternary structure from x-ray crystallographic and molecular modeling studies (38). To understand the mode of action of AChEls, it is necessary to examine the mechanism by which AChE catalyzes hydrolysis of acetylcholine. This enzymatically controlled hydrolysis parallels the two chemical mechanisms for hydrolysis of esters. The first mechanism is acid-catalyzed hydrolysis, in which the initial step involves protonation of the carbonyl oxygen. The transition state is formed by the attack of a molecule of water at the electrophilic carbonyl carbon atom. Collapse of the transition state affords the carboxylic acid and the alcohol (Fig. 12.11). The second mechanism, base-catalyzed hydrolysis, involves the nucleophilic attack ... 

The hydrolysis of an ester occurs by an addition-elimination process in which flic water is involved as the nucleophile of the reaction. The general mechanism for the ester hydrolysis process is represented in Scheme 23.2. However, the ester hydrolysis reaction is pH dependent and can be catalyzed either by acids or by bases. During the acid-catalyzed process the addition step is preceded by the protonation of the C=0 group, whereas in the base-catalyzed reaction the OH is the nucleophile of the reaction. 

Scheme 7.9 Proposed mechanism for the His-dendrimer-catalyzed ester hydrolysis (a) nucleophilic attack of histidine generates an acyl-dendrimer intermediate (b) general base catalyzed nucleophilic attack of a water molecule...

Taft, following Ingold," assumed that for the hydrolysis of carboxylic esters, steric, and resonance effects will be the same whether the hydrolysis is catalyzed by acid or base (see the discussion of ester-hydrolysis mechanisms. Reaction 10-10). Rate differences would therefore be caused only by the field effects of R and R in RCOOR. This is presumably a good system to use for this purpose because the transition state for acid-catalyzed hydrolysis (7) has a greater positive charge (and is hence destabilized by —I and stabilized by +1 substituents) than the starting ester. 

The same framework of eight possible mechanisms that was discussed for ester hydrolysis can also be applied to amide hydrolysis. Both the acid- and base-catalyzed hydrolyses are essentially irreversible, since salts are formed in both cases. For basic catalysis the mechanism is Bac2-... 

Before discussmg the mechanism of cleavage of carboxylic acid esters and amides by hydrolases, some chemical principles are worth recalling. The chemical hydrolysis of carboxylic acid derivatives can be catalyzed by acid or base, and, in both cases, the mechanisms involve addition-elimination via a tetrahedral intermediate. A general scheme of ester and amide hydrolysis is presented in Fig. 3. / the chemical mechanisms of ester hydrolysis will be... 

Fig. 8.4. Postulated mechanism of the base-catalyzed activation of (2-oxo-l, 3-dioxol-4-yl)methyl ester prodrugs (8.62) of carboxylic acids [74] [75]. After hydrolysis, the pro-moiety is liberated as a nonisolatable carbonate monoester intermediate, which is decarboxylated rapidly to a diketone.

The hydrolysis of esters of the amino acid betaine (trimethylglycine), see Fig. 8, shows extraordinary strong pH dependence. In an alkahne environment the rate of hydrolysis is much higher for these substances than for esters in general, whereas they are more stable in an acidic environment [25,26]. In fact, betaine esters are generally hydrolyzed at a significant rate by the base-catalyzed mechanism even at neutral pH. 

Further evidence for this mechanism is that a small but detectable amount of 180 exchange (see p. 332) has been found in the acid-catalyzed hydrolysis of benzamide.551 (180 exchange has also been detected for the base-catalyzed process,562 in accord with the Bac2 mechanism). Kinetic data have shown that three molecules of water are involved in the ratedetermining step,563 suggesting that, as in the Aac2 mechanism for ester hydrolysis (0-10), additional water molecules take part in a process such as... 

Figure 13.8 Variation of hydrolysis half-life at 25°C for several carboxylic acid esters as a function of solution pH due to changing contributions of the acid-catalyzed, neutral, and base-catalyzed mechanisms.

Base-Catalyzed Hydrolysis. Let us now look at the reaction of a carboxylic ester with OH", that is, the base-catalyzed hydrolysis. The reaction scheme for the most common reaction mechanism is given in Fig. 13.11. As indicated in reaction step 2, in contrast to the acid-catalyzed reaction (Fig. 13.10), the breakdown of the tetrahedral intermediate, I, may be kinetically important. Thus we write for the overall reaction rate ... 

Neutral Hydrolysis. We finish our discussion of the major hydrolysis mechanisms of carboxylic acid esters by looking at the neutral (pH independent) reaction at the carbonyl carbon. From the reaction scheme given in Fig. 13.12, we see that, very similar to what we have postulated for the base-catalyzed reaction, the dissociation... 

As for other esters, hydrolysis of phosphoric and thiophosphoric acid triester occurs via acid-catalyzed, base-catalyzed, and neutral mechanisms (Table 13.12). We note that in the following discussion we are concerned primarily with acid triesters, although the hydrolysis products of these compounds, that is, the di- and monoesters, are also of environmental concern inasmuch as they usually seem to react at slower rates as compared to the triesters (Mabey and Mill, 1978 Wolfe, 1980). 

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