Manganese complexes with polydentate quinol-containing ligands are found to catalyze the degradation of superoxide through inner-sphere mechanisms. The redox activity of the ligand stabilizes higher-valent manganese species.

In the current work, we demonstrate ligand design concepts that significantly improve the superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity of a zinc complex; the catalysis is enhanced when two quinol groups are present in the polydentate ligand. We investigate the mechanism through which the quinols influence the catalysis and determine the impact of entirely removing a chelating group from the original hexadentate ligand. Our results suggest that SOD mimicry with these compounds requires a ligand that coordinates Zn(II) strongly in both its oxidized and reduced forms and that the activity proceeds through Zn(II)-semiquinone complexes. The complex with two quinols displays greatly enhanced catalytic ability, with the activity improving by as much as 450% over a related complex with a single quinol. In the reduced form of the diquinol complex, one quinol appears to coordinate to the zinc much more weakly than the other. We believe that superoxide can more readily displace this portion of the ligand, facilitating its coordination to the metal center and thereby hastening the SOD reactivity. Despite the presence of two redox-active groups that may communicate through intramolecular hydrogen bonding and redox tautomerism, only one quinol undergoes two-electron oxidation to a para-quinone during the catalysis. After the formation of the para-quinone, the remaining quinol deprotonates and binds tightly to the metal, ensuring that the complex remains intact in its oxidized state, thereby maintaining its catalytic ability. The Zn(II) complex with the diquinol ligand is highly unusual for a SOD mimic in that it performs more efficiently in phosphate solution.

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