Methyl thiolate chemistry

The chemistry of carbonyls of higher-valent nickel and iron has not been extensively studied, but a model thiolate complex of Ni(II) with carbon monoxide (Scheme 7) and its Fe(II) analog has been synthesized [160], The methyl deriva-... 

The cobalt center in MeCbl, one of the two important B12 coenzymes, is clearly involved in key steps in catalytic methyl transfer processes. Here, the Co center cycles between Co(I) and Co(III)CH3. In methionine synthase, the proposed mechanism involves direct nucleophilic attack on the C of the Co(III)CH3 group. In model reactions, the thiolate most frequently simply binds tram to the alkyl group to give a product recently established by an x-ray study of a model system. The protein may block access to the Co, thus preventing this reaction common in models. It is likely that the reactive form of the bound cofactor is five-coordinate in the key point in the catalytic cycle. This reactive form will lead to a four-coordinate Co(I) species. The axial coordination of the cofactor by a protein imidazole allows for a finer tuning of the Cbl chemistry and may permit control of the coordination number. Thus, recoordination of Co in the Co(I) state may facilitate attack on methyltetrahydrofolate and re-formation of Co(III)CH3. 

The chemistry involved in nucleophilic aromatic substitution is well reflected in the reactions of a variety of nucleophiles with methyl penta-fluorophenyl ether (Ingemann et al 1982a). For most of the nucleophiles such as alkoxide, thiolate, enolate and (un)substituted allyl anions, the dominant reaction channel is the attack upon the fluoro-substituted carbon atoms, as is the case for OH-. The latter ion reacts approximately 75% by attack upon the fluoro-substituted carbon atoms and the remaining 25% by Sn2 (20%) and ipso (5%) substitution as summarized in (41). In the attack upon the fluorinated carbon atoms, the interesting observation is made that a F- ion is displaced via an anionic o-complex to form a F- ion/molecule complex, which is not observed to dissociate into F- as a free ionic product. 

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