Nitrophenyl ester, acylation

In the second major method of peptide synthesis the carboxyl group is activated by converting it to an active ester, usually a p-nitrophenyl ester. Recall from Section 20.12 that esters react with ammonia and amines to give fflnides. p-Nitrophenyl esters are much more reactive than methyl and ethyl esters in these reactions because p-nitrophenoxide is a better (less basic) leaving group than methoxide and ethoxide. Simply allowing the active ester and a C-protected amino acid to stand in a suitable solvent is sufficient to bring about peptide bond formation by nucleophilic acyl substitution. 

As revealed by IR-spectroscopy, the attachment of the polymer proceeds via acylation of aminopropyls absorbances of both amides (1650 cm-1) and esters (1740 cm-1) contribute to the spectrum of polyacrylate-coated aminopropyl-Aerosil (specific surface area 175 m2/g) [55], During the reaction, the accumulation of p-nitrophenyl ester groups in the support is accompanied by the liberation of p-nitrophenol into the contacting solution. Thus, the evaluation of the conformational state of adsorbing macromolecules can be performed by the simultaneous study of both processes by UV-spectroscopy as shown in Fig. 7. Apparently, at... 

If k2 > kj, the glycosyl-enzyme intermediate will accumulate, and may be trapped by the rapid denaturation of the enzyme in the presence of (saturating) amounts of substrate. With -glucoside Aj from Asp. wentii and 4-nitrophenyl [ C]-2-deoxy-) -D-irra />jo-hexopyranoside, it was possible to identify the intermediate as a glycosyl ester (acylal) of 2-deoxy-D-arabino-hexose bound to the same aspartate residue that had previously been labeled with the active-site-directed inhibitor conduritol B epoxide and with D-glucal." This constituted an important proof that the carboxylate reacting with the epoxide is directly involved in catalysis. 

Nitrophenyl esters of amino acids, which are important for peptide syntheses, have been obtained in a one-pot reaction from TV-protected amino acids, CDI, and /j-nitro-phenol at room temperature however, better yields of these esters could be achieved by use of TV-trifluoroacetylimidazole. In this reaction a mixed anhydride is presumably formed as an intermediate, which then acylates the alcohol component [17]... 

More recently, Kaiser and coworkers reported enantiomeric specificity in the reaction of cyclohexaamylose with 3-carboxy-2,2,5,5-tetramethyl-pyrrolidin-l-oxy m-nitrophenyl ester (1), a spin label useful for identifying enzyme-substrate interactions (Flohr et al., 1971). In this case, the catalytic mechanism is identical to the scheme derived for the reactions of the cycloamyloses with phenyl acetates. In fact, the covalent intermediate, an acyl-cyclohexaamylose, was isolated. Maximal rate constants for appearance of m-nitrophenol at pH 8.62 (fc2), rate constants for hydrolysis of the covalent intermediate (fc3), and substrate binding constants (Kd) for the two enantiomers are presented in Table VIII. Significantly, specificity appears in the rates of acylation (fc2) rather than in either the strength of binding or the rate of deacylation. 

In contrast to the above results with nitrophenyl esters, it was found that the kinetic parameters for the esterolysis of 0-acyl derivatives of 4- and 5-chloroaspirin show virtually no dependence on the acyl chain length, at... 

Rate constants of acyl transfer from p-nitrophenyl esters to cholest-Im [591 - ... 

It is important to note that acetylsalicylic acid and some 4-nitrophenyl esters are quite reactive species that easily acylate nucleophiles. With such compounds, albumin indeed behaves as a catalyst, but it is simultaneously a target, and the term esterase-like activity can only be understood with this restriction in mind. 

Other 4-nitrophenyl esters have also been reported to be substrates of various hydrolases. For example, 4-nitrophenyl hexanoate (7.19) was hydrolyzed by bovine serum albumin [39], The affinity of the substrate for the macromolecule was found to be high (Km/n = 0.040 mM, where n is the number of sites), but the reaction itself was slow ( = 5 10-3 s-1, where k2 is the first-order rate constant of the formation of the phenol product from the enzyme-substrate complex). Another ester, 4-nitrophenyl pivalate (7.20), was hydrolyzed by cytoplasmic aldehyde dehydrogenase at a maximum velocity ca. 1/3 and an affinity ca. 1/20 those of the acetate [40], However, the rate-limiting steps were different for the two substrates, namely acylation of the enzyme for the pivalate, and acyl-enzyme hydrolysis for the acetate (see Chapt. 3). 

N-Carbobenzoxy-L-alanine-/>-nitrophenyl ester is a specific substrate for elastase in which the rate-limiting step is deacylation, that is, hydrolysis of the acyl-enzyme intermediate. In 70% methanol over a reasonable temperature range the energy of activation of the turnover reaction, that is, deacylation, is 15.4 kcal mol. In the pH 6-7 region in this cryoprotective solvent, the turnover reacdon can be made negligibly slow at temperatures of -50 C or below. Under such conditions/i-nitro-phenol is released concurrent to acyl enzyme formation in a 1 1 stoichiometry with active enzyme in the presence of excess substrate. In other words, even at low temperatures, the acylation rate is much faster than deacylation and the acyl enzyme will accumulate on the enzyme. The rate of acyl-enzyme formation can be monitored by following the rate of p-nitrophenol release, and thus the concentration of trapped acyl enzyme may be determined. This calculadon has been carried out and... 

The presence of a covalent acyl-enzyme intermediate in the catalytic reaction of the serine proteases made this class of enzymes an attractive candidate for the initial attempt at using subzero temperatures to study an enzymatic mechanism. Elastase was chosen because it is easy to crystallize, diffracts to high resolution, has an active site which is accessible to small molecules diffusing through the crystal lattice, and is stable in high concentrations of cryoprotective solvents. The strategy used in the elastase experiment was to first determine in solution the exact conditions of temperature, organic solvent, and proton activity needed to stabilize an acyl-enzyme intermediate for sufficient time for X-ray data collection, and then to prepare the complex in the preformed, cooled crystal. Solution studies were carried out in the laboratory of Professor A. L. Fink, and were summarized in Section II,A,3. Briefly, it was shown that the chromophoric substrate -carbobenzoxy-L-alanyl-/>-nitrophenyl ester would react with elastase in both solution and in crystals in 70 30 methanol-water at pH 5.2 to form a productive covalent complex. These... 

Czamieki and Breslow (22) have studied the rate of acyl transfer from a substrate that is bound by the acyl part rather than by the leaving group. Having shown that ferrocene binds strongly to -cyclodextrin, Czamiecki and Breslow employed the p-nitrophenyl ester of ferrocinnamic acid in kinetic studies using DMSO-buffer mixtures. A rate acceleration of 51,000 times background was observed for acylation of /i-cyclodextrin. 

First-Order Rate Constants for Amine Acylation by p-Nitrophenyl Esters"- ... 

Histidine residues are efficient nucleophiles in aqueous solution at pH 7, much more so than lysines, and this is the basis for the site-selective functionalization of lysine residues in folded polypeptides and proteins [24, 25]. p-Nitrophenyl esters react with His residues in a two-step reaction to form an acyl intermediate under the release of p-nitrophenol followed by the reaction of the intermediate with the most potent nucleophile in solution to form the reaction product. In aqueous solution the reaction product is the carboxylic acid since the hydroxide ion is the most efficient nucleophile at pH 7. If there is an alcohol present the reaction product will be an ester and the overall reaction is a transesterification reaction. 

Designed histidine-based four-helix bundle proteins have been shown to catalyze the reactions ofp-nitrophenyl esters [13]. The reactivity of histidine is due to its imidazoyl side chain that reacts with active esters in a two-step reaction. In the first and rate-limiting step the imidazoyl residue reacts with the ester to form an acyl intermediate under the release of p-nitrophenol and in the second step the acyl intermediate reacts with the most potent nucleophile to form the reaction products. 

If an amine P-NH2 is used in the aqueous solution, one obtains RCONHP instead of RCOOH. Rates of cleavage of three acyl nitrophenyl esters were followed by the appearance of p-nitrophenolate ion as reflected by increased absorbances at 400 nm. The reaction was carried out at pH 9.0, in 0.02 M tris(hydroxymethyl)aminomethane buffer, at 25°C. Rate constants were determined from measurements under pseudo-first-order conditions, with the residue molarity of primary amine present in approximately tenfold excess. First-order rate graphs were linear for at least 80% of the reaction. With nitrophenyl acetate and nitrophenyl caproate, the initial ester concentration was 6.66xlO 5M. With nitrophenyl laur-ate at this concentration, aminolysis by polymer was too fast to follow and, therefore, both substrate and amine were diluted tenfold for rate measurements. 

With nonacylated polyethylenimines (Table II) the rate constant is increased by a factor of about 4 over that of propylamine. This small enhancement may be due merely to the fact that a greater fraction of primary amine groups in the polymer are in the basic, NH2 state. With these polyethylenimines, as with propylamine, k drops with increasing length of the hydrocarbon chain of the acyl nitrophenyl ester. 

Markedly different trends are seen in the rate constants for aminolysis by lauroylpolyethylenimine (containing 10 residue percent lauroyl groups). For each nitrophenyl ester the rate is substantially greater with lauroylpolyethylenimine than with polymer containing no acyl group. Furthermore, the trend in k is now markedly upward as the acyl group is... 

To compare the catalytic effectiveness of our polymer with that reported for other substances that accentuate nitrophenyl ester cleavage, we26 have carried out a series of experiments (at pH 7.3) in which the residue molar concentration of polymer imidazole groups was substantially in excess of the concentration of substrate, p-nitrophenol acylate. Pseudo-first-order rate constants k[ were determined at each of a number of polymer concentrations. Under these conditions k[ was found to be linear with [P-Im]0, the initial residue concentration of methylene-imidazole groups ... 

Carboxylic acids generated in acylation reactions have been effectively sequestered by ion pair formation with Amberlite IRA-68 ion exchange resin.29 3 Similarly, 4-nitrophenoxide formed in acylations of 4-nitrophenyl esters has been captured by anion exchange with the quaternary ammonium hydroxide resin 12.31 An exception to ion pair-mediated sequestration of byproducts is the polyamine functionalized resin 3 that was shown to covalently sequester the (3-methoxy enone hydrolysis byproduct from Danishefsky s diene via imine formation.23... 

Several polymeric acyl-transfer reactants have been used to give am-ide/ester products in the solution phase. The excess polymer-bound acyl-transfer reactants and polymer-bound nucleofuge byproducts are easily removed after completion of the reactions. One such application involved the activated nitrophenyl esters 25 (reaction 8).40 A mixture of 10 acid chlorides was converted to an equimolar mixture of 10 amide products a potent preemergent herbicide was discovered using this parallel synthetic approach.41... 

Diphenylthieno[3,4-d][l,3]dioxol-2-one 5,5-dioxide (304) can serve as an activating agent for peptide synthesis (76AG(E)444). The esters (305) are formed readily on admixture of a carboxylic acid with (304) in an aprotic solvent in the presence of pyridine. The activated esters (305) are stable, crystallizable compounds which react with amines readily to furnish the corresponding amides (Scheme 65). Competition experiments reveal that the esters (305) are more effective acyl transfer agents than the p- and o-nitrophenyl esters often used in peptide synthesis. 

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