Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide alcohol oxidation

Ethylene glycol is used as a freezing-point depressant in automotive antifreeze. It is highly toxic because the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase and the coenzyme nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) oxidize ethylene glycol to much more liver-toxic compounds like glyoxal, hydroxyacetaldehyde, glyoxylic... 

The example of the reversible oxidation of ethanol (CH3CH2OH) to ethanal (acetaldehyde, CH3CHO) by yeast alcohol dehydrogenase (alcohol NAD " oxidore-ductase [EC 1.1.1.1]) is one such (now classical) process and is discussed below. The oxidoreductase uses nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD") (oxidized form) as its coenzyme, and it is in the pyridine (azabenzene, C5H5N) ring that the reduction is clearly seen. 

Section 15.11 Oxidation of alcohols to aldehydes and ketones is a common biological reaction. Most require a coenzyme such as the oxidized form of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD" ). 

Ethanol is oxidized by alcohol dehydrogenase (in the presence of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide [NAD]) or the microsomal ethanol oxidizing system (MEOS) (in the presence of reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate [NADPH]). Acetaldehyde, the first product in ethanol oxidation, is metabolized to acetic acid by aldehyde dehydrogenase in the presence of NAD. Acetic acid is broken down through the citric acid cycle to carbon dioxide (CO2) and water (H2O). Impairment of the metabolism of acetaldehyde to acetic acid is the major mechanism of action of disulfiram for the treatment of alcoholism. 

For the majority of redox enzymes, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide [NAD(H)j and its respective phosphate [NADP(H)] are required. These cofactors are prohibitively expensive if used in stoichiometric amounts. Since it is only the oxidation state of the cofactor that changes during the reaction, it may be regenerated in situ by using a second redox reaction to allow it to re-enter the reaction cycle. Usually in the heterotrophic organism-catalyzed reduction, formate, glucose, and simple alcohols such as ethanol and 2-propanol are used to transform the... 

Zinc-containing alcohol dehydrogenases take up two electrons and a proton from alcohols in the form of a hydride. The hydride acceptor is usually NAD(P) (the oxidized form of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NADH) or its phosphorylated derivative, NADPH). Several liver alcohol dehydrogenases have been structurally characterized, and Pig. 17.8 shows the environment around the catalytic Zn center and the bound NADH cofactor. 

The mechanism of this oxidation is shown in Figure 4.29. The preferred cofactor for this reaction is nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+). It can be seen from this mechanism that oxidation of tertiary alcohols does not occur because there is no hydrogen on the OH-substituted carbon. 

Figure 6.1 Pathways involved in glucose oxidation by plant cells (a) glycolysis, (b) Krebs cycle, (c) mitochondrial cytochrome chain. Under anoxic conditions. Reactions 1, 2 and 3 of glycolysis are catalysed by lactate dehydrogenase, pyruvate decarboxylase and alcohol dehydrogenase, respectively. ATP and ADP, adenosine tri- and diphosphate NAD and NADHa, oxidized and reduced forms of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide PGA, phosphoglyceraldehyde PEP, phosphoenolpyruvate Acetyl-CoA, acetyl coenzyme A FP, flavoprotein cyt, cytochrome e, electron. (Modified from Fitter and Hay, 2002). Reprinted with permission from Elsevier...

NADH (reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide) is utilized in biological reductions to deliver hydride to an aldehyde or ketone carbonyl group (see Box 7.6). A proton from water is used to complete the process, and the product is thus an alcohol. The reaction is catalysed by an enzyme called a dehydrogenase. The reverse reaction may also be catalysed by the enzyme, namely the oxidation of an alcohol to an aldehyde or ketone. It is this reverse reaction that provides the dehydrogenase nomenclature. 

NAD is one of Nature s most important oxidizing agents it can be considered as a biological equivalent of the chromium(VI) ion. NAD is shorthand for nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide it is a co-enzyme, which together with an enzyme is essential for several life-sustaining processes (Box 2.2). On reduction it forms the corresponding 1,4-dihydropyridine, NADH, The oxidation of ethanol to acetaldehyde (ethanal) is effected by the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase and mediated by NAD (Scheme 2.31). 

Alcohol dehydrogenases (ADH EC 1.1.1.1), for which several X-ray structures are available ", catalyze the biological oxidation of primary and secondary alcohols via the formal transfer of a hydride anion to the oxidized form of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD ), coupled with the release of a proton. Liver alcohol dehydrogenase (LADH) consists of two similar subunits, each of which contains two zinc sites, but only one site within each subunit is catalytically active. The catalytic zinc is coordinated in a distorted tetrahedral manner to a histidine residue, two cysteine residues and a water molecule. The remaining zinc is coordinated tetrahedrally to four cysteine residues and plays only a structural role . 

Metabolism of ethanol by alcohol dehydrogenase and the microsomal ethanol-oxidizing system (MEOS). Alcohol dehydrogenase and aldehyde dehydrogenase are inhibited by fomepizole and disulfiram, respectively. NAD +, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide NADPH, nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate. 

RGURE 7 An oxidation-reduction reaction. Shown here is the oxidation of lactate to pyruvate. In this dehydrogenation, two electrons and two hydrogen ions (the equivalent of two hydrogen atoms) are removed from C-2 of lactate, an alcohol, to form pyruvate, a ketone. In cells the reaction is catalyzed by lactate dehydrogenase and the electrons are transferred to a cofactor called nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide. This reaction is fully reversible pyruvate can be reduced by electrons from the cofactor. In Chapter 13 we discuss the factors that determine the direction of a reaction. 

Several of the B vitamins function as coenzymes or as precursors of coenzymes some of these have been mentioned previously. Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) which, in conjunction with the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase, oxidizes ethanol to ethanal (Section 15-6C), also is the oxidant in the citric acid cycle (Section 20-10B). The precursor to NAD is the B vitamin, niacin or nicotinic acid (Section 23-2). Riboflavin (vitamin B2) is a precursor of flavin adenine nucleotide FAD, a coenzyme in redox processes rather like NAD (Section 15-6C). Another example of a coenzyme is pyri-doxal (vitamin B6), mentioned in connection with the deamination and decarboxylation of amino acids (Section 25-5C). Yet another is coenzyme A (CoASH), which is essential for metabolism and biosynthesis (Sections 18-8F, 20-10B, and 30-5A). 

The alcohol dehydrogenases are zinc metalloenzymes which can oxidize a wide variety of alcohols to their corresponding aldehydes or ketones using nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) as coenzyme. These reactions are readily reversible so that carbonyl compounds may be reduced by NADH. 

We shall start the discussion with a classical experiment related to the stereochemistry of oxidation of ethanol and reduction of acetaldehyde mediated by the enzyme yeast alcohol dehydrogenase in the presence of the oxidized (NAD+) and reduced (NADH) forms, respectively, of the coenzyme nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (Fig. 54). The stereochemically interesting feature of this reaction stems from the fact that the methylene hydrogens in CH3CH2OH and the faces of the carbonyl in CH3CH = 0 are enantiotopic. The question thus arises which of the CH2-hydrogens... 

During conversion of ethanol to acetaldehyde, hydrogen ion is transferred from alcohol to the cofactor nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) to form NADH. As a net result, alcohol oxidation generates an excess of reducing equivalents in the liver, chiefly as NADH. The excess NADH production appears to underlie a number of metabolic disorders that accompany chronic alcoholism. 

Horse liver alcohol dehydrogenase is a well-documented enzyme capable of operating with high stereoselectivity on a broad structural range of alcohol and carbonyl substrates. The present reaction proceeds via the pathway shown below, where NAD and NADH represent the oxidized and reduced forms, respectively, of the nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide coenzyme. 

Alcohol dehydrogenase catalyzes an oxidation the removal of two hydrogen atoms from the alcohol molecule. The oxidizing agent is nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD). NAD exists in two forms the oxidized form, called NAD+, and the reduced form, called NADH. The following equation shows that ethanol is oxidized to acetaldehyde, and NAD+ is reduced to NADH. 

The 3-carbamidopyridinium ring is the chemically active portion of the enzymatic cofactors, NAD and NADP (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide and its phosphate). A typical reaction involving NAD is the stereospecific (with respect to both cofactor and substrate) oxidation of ethanol to acetaldehyde catalyzed by the enzyme, alcohol dehydrogenase (Eq. 33). 

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