Abstract
Electronic perturbation of quinone methides (QM) greatly influences their stability and in turn alters the kinetics and product profile of QM reaction with deoxynucleosides. Consistent with the electron-deficient nature of this reactive intermediate, electron-donating substituents are stabilizing and electron-withdrawing substituents are destabilizing. For example, a dC N3-QM adduct is made stable over the course of observation (7 days) by the presence of an electron-withdrawing ester group that inhibits QM regeneration. Conversely, a related adduct with an electron-donating methyl group is very labile and regenerates its QM with a half-life of approximately 5 h. The generality of these effects is demonstrated with a series of alternative quinone methide precursors (QMP) containing a variety of substituents attached at different positions with respect to the exocyclic methylene. The rates of nucleophilic addition to substituted QMs measured by laser flash photolysis similarly span 5 orders of magnitude with electron-rich species reacting most slowly and electron-deficient species reacting most quickly. The reversibility of QM reaction can now be predictably adjusted for any desired application.
Original language | English (US) |
---|---|
Pages (from-to) | 11940-11947 |
Number of pages | 8 |
Journal | Journal of the American Chemical Society |
Volume | 128 |
Issue number | 36 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Sep 13 2006 |
All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes
- Catalysis
- Chemistry(all)
- Biochemistry
- Colloid and Surface Chemistry