The cleavage of aryl methyl ethers is a common reaction in chemistry requiring rather harsh conditions; consequently, it is prone to undesired reactions and lacks regioselectivity. Nevertheless, O -demethylation of aryl methyl ethers is a tool to valorize natural and pharmaceutical compounds by deprotecting reactive hydroxyl moieties. Various oxidative enzymes are known to catalyze this reaction at the expense of molecular oxygen, which may lead in the case of phenols/catechols to undesired side reactions (e.g., oxidation, polymerization). Here an oxygen-independent demethylation via methyl transfer is presented employing a cobalamin-dependent veratrol- O -demethylase (vdmB). The biocatalytic demethylation transforms a variety of aryl methyl ethers with two functional methoxy moieties either in 1,2-position or in 1,3-position. Biocatalytic reactions enabled, for instance, the regioselective monodemethylation of substituted 3,4-dimethoxy phenol as well as the monodemethylation of 1,3,5-trimethoxybenzene. The methyltransferase vdmB was also successfully applied for the regioselective demethylation of natural compounds such as papaverine and rac -yatein. The approach presented here represents an alternative to chemical and enzymatic demethylation concepts and allows performing regioselective demethylation in the absence of oxygen under mild conditions, representing a valuable extension of the synthetic repertoire to modify pharmaceuticals and diversify natural products.
The ether functionality represents a very common motif in organic chemistry and especially the methyl ether is commonly found in natural products. Its formation and cleavage can be achieved via countless chemical procedures. Nevertheless, since in particular the cleavage often involves harsh reaction conditions, milder alternatives are highly demanded. Very recently, we have reported on a biocatalytic shuttle catalysis concept for reversible cleavage and formation of phenolic O-methyl ethers employing a corrinoid-dependent methyl transferase system from the anaerobic organism Desulfitobacterium hafniense.Here we report the technical study of this system, focusing on the demethylation of guaiacol as model reaction. The optimal buffer-, pH-, temperature-and cofactor-preferences were determined as well as the influence of organic co-solvents. Beside methyl cobalamin also hydroxocobalamin turned out to be a suitable cofactor species, although the latter required activation. Various O-methyl phenyl ethers were successfully demethylated with conversions up to 82% at 10 mM substrate concentration.
Demethylating methyl phenyl ethers is challenging, especially when the products are catechol derivatives prone to follow-up reactions. For biocatalytic demethylation, monooxygenases have previously been described requiring molecular oxygen which may cause oxidative side reactions. Here we show that such compounds can be demethylated anaerobically by using cobalamin-dependent methyltransferases exploiting thiols like ethyl 3-mercaptopropionate as a methyl trap. Using just two equivalents of this reagent, a broad spectrum of substituted guaiacol derivatives were demethylated, with conversions mostly above 90 %. This strategy was used to prepare the highly valuable antioxidant hydroxytyrosol on a one-gram scale in 97 % isolated yield.
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