Penicillin 3-lactam ring

The possibility of ring expansion of the penicillin /3-lactam ring to a fused-ring piperazinone 35 is also worth mentioning (Scheme 19) <1995TL9313>. 

APA may be either obtained directly from special Penicillium strains or by hydrolysis of penicillin Q with the aid of amidase enzymes. A major problem in the synthesis of different amides from 6-APA is the acid- and base-sensitivity of its -lactam ring which is usually very unstable outside of the pH range from 3 to 6. One synthesis of ampidllin applies the condensation of 6-APA with a mixed anhydride of N-protected phenylglydne. Catalytic hydrogenation removes the N-protecting group. Yields are low (2 30%) (without scheme). 

P-Lactams. AH 3-lactams are chemically characterized by having a 3-lactam ring. Substmcture groups are the penicillins, cephalosporias, carbapenems, monobactams, nocardicias, and clavulanic acid. Commercially this family is the most important group of antibiotics used to control bacterial infections. The 3-lactams act by inhibition of bacterial cell wall biosynthesis. 

The antibacterial effectiveness of penicillins cephalospotins and other P-lactam antibiotics depends upon selective acylation and consequentiy, iaactivation, of transpeptidases involved ia bacterial ceU wall synthesis. This acylating ability is a result of the reactivity of the P-lactam ring (1). Bacteria that are resistant to P-lactam antibiotics often produce enzymes called P-lactamases that inactivate the antibiotics by cataly2ing the hydrolytic opening of the P-lactam ring to give products (2) devoid of antibacterial activity. 

In contrast to the preceding synthetic routes, the sequence shown in Scheme 62 forms the /3-lactam ring before closing the thiazolidine ring (80JCS(P1)2228 and refs, therein). The product (83) had been previously reported and converted to the corresponding penicillin derivative (see Scheme 61) (77MI51102). 

In a penicillin synthesis, the carboxyl group was protected as a / -bromophenacyl ester that was cleaved by nucleophilic displacement (PhSK, DMF, 20°, 30 min, 64% yield). Hydrogenolysis of a benzyl ester was difficult (perhaps because of catalyst poisoning by sulfur) basic hydrolysis of methyl or ethyl esters led to attack at the /3-lactam ring. ... 

The biological activity of penicillins and cephalosporins is due to the presence of the strained /3-lactam ring, which reacts with and deactivates the transpeptidase enzyme needed to synthesize and repair bacterial cell walls. With the wall either incomplete or weakened, the bacterial cell ruptures and dies. 

An example for proteases are the (3-lactamases that hydrolyse a peptide bond in the essential (3-lactam ring of penicillins, cephalosporins, carbapenems and monobac-tams and, thereby, iireversibly inactivate the diug. 13-lactamases share this mechanism with the penicillin binding proteins (PBPs), which are essential enzymes catalyzing the biosynthesis of the bacterial cell wall. In contrast to the PBPs which irreversibly bind (3-lactams to the active site serine, the analogous complex of the diug with (3-lactamases is rapidly hydrolyzed regenerating the enzyme for inactivation of additional (3-lactam molecules. 

P-Lactamases are enzymes that hydrolyze the P-lactam ring of P-lactamantibiotics (penicillins, cephalosporins, monobactams and carbapenems). They are the most common cause of P-lactam resistance. Most enzymes use a serine residue in the active site that attacks the P-lactam-amid carbonyl group. The covalently formed acylester is then hydrolyzed to reactivate the P-lacta-mase and liberates the inactivated antibiotic. Metallo P-lactamases use Zn(II) bound water for hydrolysis of the P-lactam bond. P-Lactamases constitute a heterogeneous group of enzymes with differences in molecular structures, in substrate preferences and in the genetic localizations of the encoding gene (Table 1). 

A comparison of the structures of penicillin and Dalanyl-Dalanine (cf. structures 41 and 42) shows that there is a great deal of similarity between the two molecules. Penicillin is essentially an acylated cyclic dipeptide of Dcysteine and Dvaline (84). As such, it contains a peptide bond, that of the /3-lactam ring, that can acylate the enzyme. Labeling studies of the peptidoglycan transpeptidase of Bacillus subtilis indicate that radioactive penicillin reacts with a sulfhydryl group of a cysteine residue of the enzyme (86). 

Boyd DB, Hermann RB, Presti DE, Marsh MM. Electronic structures of cephalosporins and penicillins. 4. Modeling acylation by the beta-lactam ring. / Med Chem 1975 18 408-17. 

Cephalosporins consist of a six-membered dihydrothiazine ring fused to a /3-lactam ring. Thus, the cephalosporins (A -cephalosporins) are structurally related to the penicillins (section 2.1). The position of the double bond in A -cephalosporins is important, since A -cephalosporins (double bond between 2 and 3) are not antibacterial irrespective of the composition of the side-chains. 

Penicillins and cephalosporins both have a [1-lactam ring joined to an S-containing ring structure (penicillins a thia-zolidine ring cephalosporins a dihydrothiazine ring). Because of their structural likeness, allerginicity between... 

As mentioned earlier in this chapter, penicillins are very unstable in aqueous solution by virtue of hydrolysis of the p-lactam ring. A successful method of stabilizing penicillins in liquid dosage forms is to prepare their insoluble salts and formulate them in suspensions. The reduced solubility of the drug in a suspension decreases the amount of drug available for hydrolysis. An example of improved stability of a... 

As a simple model for the enzyme penicillinase, Tutt and Schwartz (1970, 1971) investigated the effect of cycloheptaamylose on the hydrolysis of a series of penicillins. As illustrated in Scheme III, the alkaline hydrolysis of penicillins is first-order in both substrate and hydroxide ion and proceeds with cleavage of the /3-lactam ring to produce penicilloic acid. In the presence of an excess of cycloheptaamylose, the rate of disappearance of penicillin follows saturation kinetics as the cycloheptaamylose concentration is varied. By analogy to the hydrolysis of the phenyl acetates, this saturation behavior may be explained by inclusion of the penicillin side chain (the R group) within the cycloheptaamylose cavity prior to nucleophilic attack by a cycloheptaamylose alkoxide ion at the /3-lactam carbonyl. The presence of a covalent intermediate on the reaction pathway, although not isolated, was implicated by the observation that the rate of disappearance of penicillin is always greater than the rate of appearance of free penicilloic acid. 

The answer is e. (Hardman, pp 1074—1076.) Penicillinase hydrolyzes the p-lactam ring of penicillin G to form inactive penicilloic acid. Consequently, the antibiotic is ineffective in the therapy of infections caused by penicillinase-producing microorganisms such as staphylococci, bacilli, E, call, P aeruginosa, and M tuberculosis,... 

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