Transesterification of primary alcohols with inositol 1,2-cyclic
phosphate (IcP) in the presence of
phosphatidylinositol-specific phospholipase C (PI-PLC) resulted in the
formation of O-alkyl inositol 1-phosphates.
The starting IcP was obtained in a single step by PI-PLC catalyzed
cleavage of phosphatidylinositol from the soybean
phospholipid. The transesterification reaction was performed with
a series of 20 structurally diverse hydroxyl
compounds, ranging in the structural complexity from methanol to the
serine-containing Ser-Tyr-Ser-Met tetrapeptide,
to give the corresponding phosphodiesters with 20−80% yields,
depending mainly on the solubility of alcohols in
water. The rates of transesterifications, and of the competing
hydrolysis of IcP to inositol 1-phosphate (IP), were
relatively insensitive to the alcohol structure. With polyhydroxyl
compounds such as glycerol and hexitols, the
enzyme displayed complete preference toward formation of the inositol
phosphate derivatives of the primary hydroxyl
groups. On the other hand, PI-PLC did not discriminate between
primary hydroxyl groups in different environments
and showed low stereoselectivity with racemic alcohols featuring a
chiral center at the β-position. The
O-alkyl
inositol phosphates formed were readily separable from the hydrolytic
product, IP, by the anion-exchange
chromatography, and were fully characterized by means of 1H
and 31P NMR and electrospray MS. Our
results
provide a new, simple, and efficient two-step synthetic route to
substituted O-alkyl inositol phosphates from
inexpensive
starting materials. The reported reaction was successfully applied
to synthesis of complex inositol phosphate
derivatives, as illustrated by inositol phosphoesters of mono- and
oligosaccharides, nucleosides and peptides. The
synthetic usefulness of this reaction, however, is not limited to the
examples shown. Because transesterification
activity of phospholipase C has not been reported before, its mechanism
is discussed in a broad context of mechanisms
of phosphoesterases.