Prephenate

Disodium Prephenate.—Biosynthetic pathways seem to be characterized by the occasional presence of elusive chemical substances, elusive by virtue of their transient nature as free chemical entities. One such is prephenic acid (12), an 

Reagents i, AC2O-HNO3, catalytic H2SO4 ii, MeOH-p-TsOH, A iii, NaOH-Na dithionite 

Hanessian and Rancourt have discussed carbohydrates as optically active precursors of the aglycones of some of the macrolides. 

Others.—Danishefsky and his co-workers have applied the notion of ring mutations to stereospecific syntheses of necine bases [e.g. ( )-hastanecine (18)]. In this work it is interesting to note how the stereochemistry of a double bond passes to that of a cyclopropane, and eventually to that of the target (18). 

StilP has provided an expeditious route to germacranes such as ( )-acorager-macrane (19), based on an oxy-Cope rearrangement. The planning of syntheses of vernolepin and related sesquiterpene lactones has been discussed in full papers, and syntheses of insect sex attractants have been reviewed.  

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Phenylalanine- and Tyrosine-Derived Alkaloids. Carbohydrate metaboHsm leads via a seven-carbon sugar, ie, a heptulose, derivative to shikimic acid [138-59-0] (57), C H qO, which leads in turn to prephenic acid [126-49-8] (58), (43). 

Gene symbols are according to those of E. coli. (173). Abbreviations Horn, Homoserine Ant, Anthranilic acid PR, Phosphoribosyl ppc, Phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase PRDH, prephenate dehydrogenase. 

A Try mutant would not be subject to feedback inhibition by overproduction of tryptophan. Also, the mutation may allow more chorismate to proceed to prephenate via E3 (see Figure 8.4) and thus through to L-phenylalanine. 

Functionality can be built into either the diene or dienophile for purposes of subsequent transformations. For example, in the synthesis of prephenic acid, the diene has the capacity to generate an enone. The dienophile contains a sulfoxide substituent that is subsequently used to introduce a second double bond by elimination. 

Figure 1. Schematic outline of various products and associated enzymes from the shikimate and phenolic pathways in plants (and some microorganisms). Enzymes (1) 3-deoxy-2-oxo-D-arabino-heptulosate-7-phosphate synthase (2) 5-dehydroquinate synthase (3) shikimate dehydrogenase (4) shikimate kinase (5) 5-enol-pyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase (6) chorismate synthase (7) chorismate mutase (8) prephenate dehydrogenase (9) tyrosine aminotransferase (10) prephenate dehydratase (11) phenylalanine aminotransferase (12) anthranilate synthase (13) tryptophan synthase (14) phenylalanine ammonia-lyase (15) tyrosine ammonia-lyase and (16) polyphenol oxidase. (From ACS Symposium Series No. 181, 1982) (62).

In this contribution, we describe work from our group in the development and application of alternatives that allow the explicit inclusion of environment effects while treating the most relevant part of the system with full quantum mechanics. The first methodology, dubbed MD/QM, was used for the study of the electronic spectrum of prephenate dianion in solution [18] and later coupled to the Effective Fragment Potential (EFP) [19] to the study of the Claisen rearrangement reaction from chorismate to prephenate catalyzed by the chorismate mutase (CM) enzyme [20]. 

The Shikimate pathway is responsible for biosynthesis of aromatic amino acids in bacteria, fungi and plants [28], and the absence of this pathway in mammals makes it an interesting target for designing novel antibiotics, fungicides and herbicides. After the production of chorismate the pathway branches and, via specific internal pathways, the chorismate intermediate is converted to the three aromatic amino acids, in addition to a number of other aromatic compounds [29], The enzyme chorismate mutase (CM) is a key enzyme responsible for the Claisen rearrangement of chorismate to prephenate (Scheme 1-1), the first step in the branch that ultimately leads to production of tyrosine and phenylalanine. 

Although low energy structures for prephenate have been reported before [40], these have been optimized using gas-phase quantum mechanics, and are not compatible with the structure determined for the prephenate inside the active site of CM [41], The first calculation of the electronic spectrum of prephenate inside the active site of the enzyme was done by our group [18]. Using the MD/QM method described, we were also able to obtain an electronic spectrum for prephenate in solution. 

Figure 1-2. The two dominant conformers of prephenate in solution. Conformer (a) has both the OH and COO- groups solvated by the environment. Conformer (b) has a strong H-bond between the OH and the COO groups. Adapted from Ref. [18]...

Figure 1-3. Comparison between experimental and theoretically derived spectra for prephenate anion in solution. The vertical lines correspond to the theoretical spectrum for 12 conformers (3 lines for each) with intensities computed as described in the main text. The experimental spectrum is presented as a dark line (with the highest energy intensity also normalized to 1). The inset shows the near-UV absorption in greater detail. Adapted from Ref. [18]...

Scheme 1-1. Transition state for the conversion of chorismate into prephenate. Also indicated are the Glu78 and Arg90 residues from chorismate mutase...

Figure 1-4. Energy profiles for the reaction of chorismate to prephenate. (a) Profile in vacuum for the forward (squares) and reverse (filled circles) reactions, (b) Profiles for forward reaction in water (filled circles), and in the enzyme with only the substrate in the QM zone (squares) and with substrate plus chorismate mutase side chains glu78 and arg90 in the QM zone (diamonds)...

Figure 1-5. Free energy profile for the reaction from chorismate (RC 1.75) to prephenate (RC — 1.75), obtained using MSMD and Jarzynski s equality and pulling speeds of 2.0 A/ps (red) and 1.0 A/ps (green), and using umbrella sampling (blue)...

Chorismate mutase catalyzes the Claisen rearrangement of chorismate to prephenate at a rate 106 times greater than that in solution (Fig. 5.5). This enzyme reaction has attracted the attention of computational (bio)chemists, because it is a rare example of an enzyme-catalyzed pericyclic reaction. Several research groups have studied the mechanism of this enzyme by use of QM/MM methods [76-78], It has also been studied with the effective fragment potential (EFP) method [79, 80]. In this method the chemically active part of an enzyme is treated by use of the ab initio QM method and the rest of the system (protein environment) by effective fragment potentials. These potentials account... 

Preparative chromatography, 6 374, 385 Preparative high performance liquid chromatography, 6 441 Prephenic acid, 2 83-84 Prepolymers, 24 705... 

Schultz and coworkers (Jackson et a ., 1988) have generated an antibody which exhibits behaviour similar to the enzyme chorismate mutase. The enzyme catalyses the conversion of chorismate [49] to prephenate [50] as part of the shikimate pathway for the biosynthesis of aromatic amino acids in plants and micro-organisms (Haslam, 1974 Dixon and Webb, 1979). It is unusual for an enzyme in that it does not seem to employ acid-base chemistry, nucleophilic or electrophilic catalysis, metal ions, or redox chemistry. Rather, it binds the substrate and forces it into the appropriate conformation for reaction and stabilizes the transition state, without using distinct catalytic groups. 

Table 1 Kinetic and thermodynamic parameters for the spontaneous, enzyme-catalysed and antibody-catalysed conversion of chorismic acid [23] into prephenic acid [24],...

Claisen rearrangement chorismic acid to prephenic acid... 

Aryl side chain containing L-a-amino acids, such as phenylalanine (Phe), tyrosine (Tyr), and tryptophan (Trp), are derived through the shikimate pathway. The enzymatic transformation of phosphoenolpyr-uvate (PEP) and erythro-4-phosphate, through a series of reactions, yields shikimate (Scheme 2). Although shikimate is an important biosynthetic intermediate for a number of secondary metabolites, this chapter only describes the conversion of shikimate to amino acids containing aryl side chains. In the second part of the biosynthesis, shikimate is converted into chorismate by the addition of PEP to the hydroxyl group at the C5 position. Chorismate is then transformed into prephenate by the enzyme chorismate mutase (Scheme 3). 

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