R. Naoum et al. / Tetrahedron xxx (2016) 1e5
3
Table 2
molecules were trapped within the enzyme active site during the
immobilization process, control experiments were performed in
order to determine the amount of ester hydrolysis that could be
catalyzed by the enzyme under the reaction conditions. This
background hydrolysis, rather than the desired transesterification
of the ester moieties, would also result in a decrease in the in-
tegration of the peak of the protons from the methyl group,
therefore producing a false indication that esterification or poly-
merization had occurred.
Molecular weights of the unfractionated reaction products as determined by MALDI-
ToF MS and GPC after 7 days
Molecular weights (g/mol)
MALDI-ToF MS
Mw
GPC
Reaction products
Mn
Mn
800
Mw
830
820
7,8
9,10
11,12
598ꢁ38
757ꢁ50
850ꢁ51
625ꢁ45
897ꢁ35
940ꢁ72
800
1100
1400
These reactions were carried out by incubating the diester at
100 ꢀC in toluene in the absence of the chiral diols for 24 h, and they
were catalyzed using a 10 wt % of the N435 relative to the diester.
The reactions were terminated after 24 h by cooling the reaction
mixture to room temperature, adding 2.0 mL of diethyl ether, and
this technique may not provide a complete picture of the reaction
products. To corroborate the MALDI-ToF MS data, gel permeation
chromatography (GPC) analysis, relative to polystyrene standards,
of the (Table 2) unfractionated reaction systems was also performed.
GPC analysis revealed that although the reactions did not yield
products that were simply the result of a single transesterification
event, that any higher molecular weight molecules that were syn-
thesized were at best oligomers rather than the possible polymers.
Of the three chiral diols, the fully saturated diol 3 displayed the
greatest potential for forming polymeric species, reaching molec-
ular weight values of Mw¼1400 g/mol and Mn¼1100 g/mol as evi-
denced by GPC; it was not possible to obtain reliable molecular
weight data for these reaction products utilizing MALDI-ToF MS.
Although the GPC data suggested that four units had combined on
average in the reaction mixtures it was unclear whether both hy-
droxyl groups of the chiral diol reacted or if only a single trans-
esterification event was occurring per diol functionality.
€
removing the N435 beads by filtration using a fritted Buchner filter.
Following filtration, the beads were washed with 3ꢂ2.0 mL of
diethyl ether to recover any remaining starting materials or prod-
ucts, and the solvents were removed using a rotary evaporator.
These reactions were carried out in triplicate.
On average, 7% hydrolysis of the diester was observed with N435
at 100 ꢀC. This amount of hydrolysis was considered during analysis
of spectral data for the polymerization reactions and all the data
reported below represents consumption rates above that of this
background.
2.2. Consumption of the siloxane diester
In the absence of the enzyme, transesterification reactions were
not observed between 6 and any of the chiral diols as evidenced by
1H NMR spectroscopy.
2.4. Isolation and identification of individual molecules
In keeping with previous reports,9,10,12,15,18 reactions were car-
ried out at 100 ꢀC over a period of 24 h and 7 days to ascertain the
extent to which the transesterification reactions would occur be-
tween the siloxane diester and the chiral diol molecules. With all
three diol systems the higher temperature resulted in the greatest
consumption of the siloxane diester (Table 1) as determined by 1H
NMR spectroscopy. Chiral diol 3 resulted in the greatest con-
sumption of siloxane diester 6, with the maximum being approx-
imately 60% after 7 days. Of the three chiral diols 3 is fully saturated
and the least sterically hindered. This likely facilitated the in-
corporation of diol 3 into the enzymes’ active site relative to the
other diol species, ultimately resulting in a more efficient trans-
esterification reaction.
Attempts were made to fractionate the reactions in an effort to
isolate and characterize individual molecules and to determine the
substitution pattern with respect to the diol molecules. Although it
was not possible to isolate all of the components of the reactions, as
higher oligomeric species (e.g., tetramers) did not elute from the
column, the species resulting from the transesterification of silox-
ane diester 6 and each of the chiral diol molecules were successfully
isolated. The isolated compounds were fully characterized using 1H
NMR spectroscopy, 13C NMR spectroscopy, 29Si NMR spectroscopy,
FTIR spectroscopy, and MS. Spectral analysis revealed that both of
the hydroxyl moieties at the stereogenic centers in the diol species
were accessible to the N435 and could participate in trans-
esterification reactions (Table 3); regioisomers were distinguished
using NMR spectroscopy. With unsaturated diols 1 and 2 the
transesterification at the hydroxyl group distal to the acetonide
group predominated in the isolated products while the proximal
hydroxyl group relative to the acetonide was the dominant species
isolated from the transesterification reaction with saturated diol 3.
All of the six isolated products 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 from the enzyme-
mediated transesterification reactions were optically active (Table
3). However, given that an accurate concentration of the in-
dividual components from the reaction could not be obtained,
optical activity measurements were not performed on the unfrac-
tionated reaction products, as the results would not be informative.
Table 1
The percent consumption of diester 6 in polymerization reactions with chiral diols 1,
2, and 3 at 100 ꢀC over 24 h and 7 days. All reactions were carried out in 1 mL of
toluene, stirred at 60 rpm, and catalyzed by 10 wt % of N435 (0.8e2 wt % lipase)
relative to the combined mass of the monomers. The remainder of the material was
the starting compound 6
Chiral diol
% Consumption of siloxane diester 6
24 h
7 days
1
2
3
15ꢁ2
12ꢁ2
33ꢁ3
28ꢁ7
23ꢁ1
58ꢁ6
2.5. Competition experiments for hydroxyl selectivity by
N435
2.3. MALDI-ToF and GPC analysis
Matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time-of-flight
(MALDI-ToF) mass spectroscopy analysis of the unfractionated re-
action systems suggested that the reaction products were simply
the result of a single transesterification event between one of the
chiral diols and the siloxane diester (Table 2). However, not all
analytes respond to MALDI-ToF analysis, raising the possibility that
As part of this work it was of interest to determine if the lipase
had a preference for one of the free hydroxyl groups of the chiral
diol over the other. It was hypothesized that although only slight
electronic differences exist between the two free hydroxyl groups,
that the steric differences may cause the lipase to favor one hy-
droxyl moiety over the other.