Catalysis proximity

A reaction involving what might be called proximity catalysis is that of the hydroxymethylcalix[4]arene 180i with toluene in the presence of toluenesulfonic acid. The product is a mixture of tolylmethylcalix[4]arenes in an orthofmetal... 

Inspired by the many hydrolytically-active metallo enzymes encountered in nature, extensive studies have been performed on so-called metallo micelles. These investigations usually focus on mixed micelles of a common surfactant together with a special chelating surfactant that exhibits a high affinity for transition-metal ions. These aggregates can have remarkable catalytic effects on the hydrolysis of activated carboxylic acid esters, phosphate esters and amides. In these reactions the exact role of the metal ion is not clear and may vary from one system to another. However, there are strong indications that the major function of the metal ion is the coordination of hydroxide anion in the Stem region of the micelle where it is in the proximity of the micelle-bound substrate. The first report of catalysis of a hydrolysis reaction by me tall omi cell es stems from 1978. In the years that... 

In retrospect, this study has demonstrated the limitations of two commonly accepted methods of analysing solubilisation and micellar catalysis, respectively. It has become clear that solubilisate ririg-current induced shifts need to be interpreted with due caution. These data indicate a proximity of solubilisate and parts of the surfactant and, strictly, do not specify the location within the micelle where the encounter takes place. Also the use of the pseudophase model for bimolecular reactions requires precaution. When distribution of the reactants over the micelle is not comparable, erroneous results are likely to be obtained... 

Affinity Labels. Active site-directed, irreversible inhibitors or affinity labels are usually substrate analogues that contain a reactive electrophilic functional group. In the first step, they bind to the active site of the target enzyme in a reversible fashion. Subsequentiy, an active site nucleophile in close proximity reacts with the electrophilic group on the substrate to form a covalent bond between the enzyme and the inhibitor, typically via S 2 alkylation or acylation. Affinity labels do not require activation by the catalysis of the enzyme, as in the case of a mechanism-based inhibitor. 

FIGURE 16.14 All example of proximity effects in catalysis, (a) The imidazole-catalyzed hydrolysis of j nitrophenylacetate is slow, but the corresponding intramolecular reaction is 24-fold faster (assuming [imidazole] = 1 Min [a]). 

Clearly, proximity and orientation play a role in enzyme catalysis, but there is a problem with each of the above comparisons. In both cases, it is impossible to separate true proximity and orientation effects from the effects of entropy loss when molecules are brought together (described the Section 16.4). The actual rate accelerations afforded by proximity and orientation effects in Figures 16.14 and 16.15, respectively, are much smaller than the values given in these figures. Simple theories based on probability and nearest-neighbor models, for example, predict that proximity effects may actually provide rate increases of only 5- to 10-fold. For any real case of enzymatic catalysis, it is nonetheless important to remember that proximity and orientation effects are significant. 

Until recently, the catalytic role of Asp ° in trypsin and the other serine proteases had been surmised on the basis of its proximity to His in structures obtained from X-ray diffraction studies, but it had never been demonstrated with certainty in physical or chemical studies. As can be seen in Figure 16.17, Asp ° is buried at the active site and is normally inaccessible to chemical modifying reagents. In 1987, however, Charles Craik, William Rutter, and their colleagues used site-directed mutagenesis (see Chapter 13) to prepare a mutant trypsin with an asparagine in place of Asp °. This mutant trypsin possessed a hydrolytic activity with ester substrates only 1/10,000 that of native trypsin, demonstrating that Asp ° is indeed essential for catalysis and that its ability to immobilize and orient His is crucial to the function of the catalytic triad. 

The importance of the proximity effect in cyclodextrin catalysis has been discussed on the basis of the structural data. Harata et al. 31,35> have determined the crystal structures of a-cyclodextrin complexes with m- and p-nitrophenols by the X-ray method. Upon the assumption that m- and p-nitrophenyl acetates form inclusion complexes in the same manner as the corresponding nitrophenols, they estimated the distances between the carbonyl carbon atoms of the acetates and the adjacent second-... 

CATALYSIS OCCURS AT THE ACTIVE SITE Catalysis by Proximity... 

So far, certain biomimetic catalysts (1 and 2b in Fig. 18.17) have been shown to reduce O2 to H2O under a slow electron flux at physiologically relevant conditions (pH 7,0.2-0.05 V potential vs. NHE) and retain their catalytic activity for >10" turnovers. Probably, only the increased stability of the turning-over catalyst is of relevance to the development of practical ORR catalysts for fuel cells. In addition, biomimetic catalysts of series 1,2,3, and 5, and catalyst 4b are the only metalloporphyrins studied in ORR catalysis with well-defined proximal and distal environments. For series 2, which is by far the most thoroughly studied series of biomimetic ORR catalysts, these well-defined environments result in an effective catalysis that seems to be the least sensitive among all metalloporphyrins to the electrode material (whether the catalyst is adsorbed or in the film) and to chemicals present in the electrolyte or in the O2 stream, including typical catalyst poisons (CO and CN ). 

Enzymes are often considered to function by general acid-base catalysis or by covalent catalysis, but these considerations alone cannot account for the high efficiency of enzymes. Proximity and orientation effects may be partially responsible for the discrepancy, but even the inclusion of these effects does not resolve the disparity between observed and theoretically predicted rates. These and other aspects of the theories of enzyme catalysis are treated in the monographs by Jencks (33) and Bender (34). 

A complicating feature of studies of carboxylic acid and their corresponding esters, having proximate keto or formyl groups, is the occurrence of ring-chain tautomerism, as in Scheme 1 (Valters and Flitsch, 1985). The rates of conversion of the ring and chain acids ([1] and [2] R = H) are rapid. However, both the pseudo and normal esters ([1] and [2], R = alkyl or aryl) can be isolated in favourable circumstances. The latter esters can also be interconverted by base- or acid-catalysis under suitable conditions. 

It is apparent that steric bulk and stereochemical control of mechanism operates in the alkaline hydrolysis of methyl 8-acyl-1-naphthoates. The proximity and favourable orientation of the carbonyl group at the 8-position facilitates intramolecular catalysis from this group. However, the formation of the tetrahedral intermediate at the 8-acyl carbonyl group has distinct... 

The study of both carbonyl and carbon acid participation in ester hydrolysis has been used by Bowden and Last (1971) to evaluate certain of the factors suggested for important roles in enzymic catalysis. A first model concerns a comparison of the three formyl esters and shows that the proximity of the formyl to the ester group and internal strain increase in passing along the series, 1,2-benzoate, 1,8-naphthoate and 4,5-phenanthroate. The very large rate enhancements result from the proximity of the internal nucleophile once formed and from internal strain. Strain is increased or induced by the primary... 

Dendrimers are not only unreactive support molecules for homogeneous catalysts, as discussed in the previous paragraph, but they can also have an important influence on the performance of a catalyst. The dendrons of a dendrimer can form a microenvironment in which catalysis shows different results compared to classical homogeneous catalysis while peripheral functionalized dendrimers can enforce cooperative interactions between catalytic sites because of their relative proximity. These effects are called dendritic effects . Dendritic effects can alter the stability, activity and (enantio)selectivity of the catalyst. In this paragraph, different dendritic effects will be discussed. 

The factors — or at least some of them — which control reactivity in intramolecular reactions are relevant to enzyme catalysis, which also involves reactions between functional groups brought together in close and precisely defined proximity (Kirby, 1980). This has been an area of lively discussion in the recent literature [for a brief summary and leading references see Paquette et al. (1990)]. The main difficulty in making generalizations about the dependence of reactivity on geometry based on results from systems in which proximity is covalently enforced lies in the constraints imposed by particular systems. These may well affect reactivity... 

The unusual rate enhancement of nucleophiles in micelles is a function of two interdependent effects, the enhanced nucleophilicity of the bound anion and the concentration of the reactants. In bimolecular reactions, it is not always easy to estimate the true reactivity of the bound anion separately. Unimolecular reactions would be better probes of the environmental effect on the anionic reactivity than bimolecular reactions, since one need not take the proximity term into account. The decarboxylation of carboxylic acids would meet this requirement, for it is unimolecular, almost free from acid and base catalysis, and the rate constants are extremely solvent dependent (Straub and Bender, 1972). 

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