Rate-limiting step substitution

See also Enzyme cofactors downhill trajectories for, 196,197 mechanism of catalytic reaction, 190-192 metal substitution, 200-204 potential surfaces for, 192-195,197 rate-limiting step of, 190 reference solution reaction for, 192-195,... 

What we shall be doing in the discussion that follows is comparing the effect that a particular Y would be expected to have on the rate of attack on positions o-/p- and m-, respectively, to the substituent Y. This assumes that the proportions of isomers formed are determined entirely by their relative rates of formation, i.e. that the control is wholly kinetic (cf. p. 163). Strictly we should seek to compare the effect of Y on the different transition states for o-, m- and p-attack, but this is not usually possible. Instead we shall use Wheland intermediates as models for the transition states that immediately precede them in the rate-limiting step, just as we have done already in discussing the individual electrophilic substitution reactions (cf. p. 136). It will be convenient to discuss several different types of Y in turn. 

The factors that influence elimination v. substitution are discussed subsequently (p. 260). Evidence for the involvement of C—H bond fission in the rate-limiting step—as a concerted pathway requires— is provided by the observation of a primary kinetic isotope effect (cf. p. 46) when H is replaced by D on the ft-carbon. 

This is borne out by a comparison of the rates of base-catalysed hydrolysis (cf. p. 238) of m-N02 (5), and of m-Me (6), substituted ethyl benzoates with that of the unsubstituted ester a reaction in which the slow, and hence rate-limiting, step is initial attack on the ester by eOH (p. 239) ... 

This reaction sequence was definitively shown by use of temperature programmed reaction spectroscopy ( 7) The key to the success of this method was that reaction (4) was the rate-limiting step, allowing positive identification of the CH30(a) intermediate by TPRS. Isotopic substitution with b0 and deuterium was used to identify steps (2) and (3). 

This reaction proceeds via the transition state illustrated in Fig. 10.2. An Sn2 reaction (second order nucleophilic substitution) in the rate limiting step involves the attack of the nucleophilic reagent on the rear of the (usually carbon) atom to which the leaving group is attached. The rate is thus proportional to both the concentration of nucleophile and substrate and is therefore second order. On the other hand, in an SnI reaction the rate limiting step ordinarily involves the first order formation of an active intermediate (a carbonium ion or partial carbonium ion, for example,) followed by a much more rapid conversion to product. A sampling of a and 3 2° deuterium isotope effects on some SnI and Sn2 solvolysis reactions (i.e. a reaction between the substrate and the solvent medium) is shown in Table 10.2. The... 

In reactions 14.32 and 14.33 the hydrogen atoms are not involved in any bonds that are being made or being broken in the reaction. The isotope effect is therefore referred to as a secondary a-deuterium isotope effect since the position of isotopic substitution is a to the bond being broken in the rate limiting step (see Chapter 10 for discussion of secondary isotope effects). 

The difference between A obsd and caic might be due to a specific salt effect on the rate constant for solvolysis. However, this is unlikely because perchlorate ion acts to stabilize carbocations relative to neutral substrates.At high concentrations of sodium bromide, the rate-limiting step for solvolysis of 1-Br is the capture of 1 by solvent (ks Scheme 5A). Substitution of Br for CIO4 should destabilize the carbocation-like transition state for this step relative to the starting neutral substrate, and this would lead to a negative, rather than positive deviation of obsd for equations (3A) and (3B). 

The reaction is promoted by a variety of bases, usually in catalytic quantities only, which generate an equilibrium concentration of carbanion (92) it is reversible, and the rate-limiting step is believed to be carbon-carbon bond formation, i.e. the reaction of the carbanion (92) with the substituted alkene (91). Its general synthetic utility stems from the wide variety both of substituted alkenes and of carbanions that may be employed the most common carbanions are probably those from CHjfCOjEtlj—see below, MeCOCHjCOjEt, NCCH -COjEt, RCH2NO2, etc. Many Michael reactions involve C=C—C=0 as the substituted alkene. 

In a collaboration between the Abelson and Hecht labs [56b], a series of noncoded amino acids were introduced into dihydrofolate reductase (DHFR) to probe substrate binding and the requirement of an aspartic acid residue for catalytic competence. When aspartic acid analogs mono- or disubstituted at the )0-carbon were substituted for the active site aspartic acid residue, the mutant DHFRs were still able to catalyze the NADPH-dependent reduction of dihydrofolate to tetrahydrofolate at 74 - 86 % of the wild-type rate. While hydride transfer from NADPH is not the rate-limiting step for the wild-type enzyme at physiological pH, a kinetic isotope experiment with NADPD indicated that hydride transfer had likely become the rate-limiting step for the mutant containing the )0,)0-dimethylaspartic acid. 

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