Sulfites cleavage

The point of attachment on the pyrimidine fragment was of course already marked by the position of the sulfonic group introduced during the sulfite cleavage of the vitamin. Thus, in 1936, the structure I could be assigned to thiamine, ten years after the crystalline vitamin was first obtained. 

Indeed both -lactylthiamine pyrophosphate (XX) and a-hydroxyethyl-thiamine pyrophosphate (XXI) have been isolated and identified as products after incubation of pyruvate with a purified carboxylase preparation " . When [2- - C]pyruvate is used, the radioactivity is found in the thiazole part of the molecule after sulfite cleavage of XXL Acetaldehyde is formed from pyruvic acid by yeast carboxylase by enzymic cleavage of intermediate XXI, Uberating thiamine pyTophosphate . XXI has also been identified as intermediate in the formation of acetyl-coenzyme A from pyruvic acid by p3u uvic oxidase . The transketolase reaction has been shown to proceed via a gly-colaldehyde-enzyme intermediate here one may expect to find dihydroxy-ethylthiamine pyrophosphate as active glycol-aldehyde . Such experiments strongly support Breslow s concept of the reaction mechanism. 

Substitution Reactions on Side Chains. Because the benzyl carbon is the most reactive site on the propanoid side chain, many substitution reactions occur at this position. Typically, substitution reactions occur by attack of a nucleophilic reagent on a benzyl carbon present in the form of a carbonium ion or a methine group in a quinonemethide stmeture. In a reversal of the ether cleavage reactions described, benzyl alcohols and ethers may be transformed to alkyl or aryl ethers by acid-catalyzed etherifications or transetherifications with alcohol or phenol. The conversion of a benzyl alcohol or ether to a sulfonic acid group is among the most important side chain modification reactions because it is essential to the solubilization of lignin in the sulfite pulping process (17). 

Various processes have been disclosed wherein moist soHd sodium pyrosulfite [7681-57-4] is stirred in a steam-heated vessel with sodium carbonate. The exothermic reaction at 80—110°C results in the drying of the product. A lower grade of sodium sulfite is produced commercially in the United States as a by-product of the sulfonation—caustic cleavage route to resorcinol (333). 

Hydrolysis of dialkyl sulfites under acidic and alkaline conditions, which is followed by the use of OH2, proceeds by attack at sulfur to give S—O cleavage (72). The rate of hydrolysis is generally faster for cycHc and aryl sulfites than for dialkyl sulfites (73). Activation parameters of hydrolysis are known for some sulfites, and the increased rate for ethylene sulfite results from a reduced entropy of activation which results from a rigid ring stmcture (74). 

In terms of economical synthetic approaches to indoles, the synthesis of this heterocycle from anilines and trialkylammonium chlorides was effected in an aqueous medium (H20-dioxane) at 180°C in the presence of a catalytic amount of ruthenium(III) chloride hydrate and triphenylphosphine together with tin(II)chloride <00TL1811>. Muchowski devised a novel synthetic route to indole-4-carboxaldehydes and 4-acetylindoles 86 via hydrolytic cleavage of W-alkyl-5-aminoisoquinolinium salts 85 to homophthaldehyde derivatives upon heating in a two phase alkyl acetate-water system containing an excess of a 2 1 sodium bisulfite-sodium sulfite mixture <00JHC1293>. 

Cytochromes, catalases, and peroxidases all contain iron-heme centers. Nitrite and sulfite reductases, involved in N-O and S-O reductive cleavage reactions to NH3 and HS-, contain iron-heme centers coupled to [Fe ] iron-sulfur clusters. Photosynthetic reaction center complexes contain porphyrins that are implicated in the photoinitiated electron transfers carried out by the complexes. 

The oxidizing power of the catalytic sulfite ion/02 systems was utilized in oxidative cleavage of DNA (118-121), in an analytical application for the determination of sulfur dioxide in air (122) and in developing a luminescent probe for measuring oxygen uptake (123). 

Figure 3.12 Cleavage of ether linkages during sulfite pulping.

It now seems probable that cleavage of thiosulfate in T. thioparus (and Thiobacillus denitrificans) depends not on a reductase as originally perceived by Peck (1960) but on a sulfur transferase of the rhodanese type (Peck 1968). Rhodanese is usually detected by its ability to transfer the sulfane-sulfur of thiosulfate to the nonphysiologic acceptor cyanide, producing thiocyanate and liberating sulfite ... 

The original demonstration of APS reductase in T. thioparus used the methylviologen-dependent assay of APS cleavage to AMP and sulfite (Peck 1960), but in the oxidation of thiosulfate the reaction proceeds in the oxidative direction (Eq. 15.4), forming APS. This is the thermodynamically favorable direction of the reaction. Later work showed that APS formation by the reductase could be coupled to the reduction of ferricyanide or to cytochrome c (Peck et al. 1965 Lyric and Suzuki 1970), thereby showing the thermodynamic feasibility of APS as an intermediate in the oxidation pathways for sulhte and thiosulfate. 

A similar cleavage was performed in a B-ring steroid 492 (equation 215). In view of the oxime geometry the fragmentation was unexpected. A new mechanism, involving a six-membered cyclic A-O-sulfite 493, was proposed to account for the observations. 

Furthermore, the cleavage of organic sulfites and sulfates by hydrogen fluoride gives the corresponding alkyl or acyl fluorides in fair to good yield,287 e.g. formation of acetyl fluoride from the mixed anhydride287 or sulfonyl fluorides from sulfonic acid anhydrides.287... 

The linear polysulfide obtained by this reaction may be oxidized, the sulfur atoms being removed from the chain either one at a time to form sulfite or two at a time to form thiosulfate.322 3223 Thiosulfate is oxidized by all species, the major pathway beginning with cleavage to S° and S032 (Eq. 18-21, step a). At high thiosulfate concentrations some may be oxidized to tetrathionate (step b), which is hydrolyzed to sulfate (step c). 

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