Telluroxides Exhibit Hydrolysis Capacity
Zeyuan Dong, Xiangqiu Li, Kai Liang, Shizhong Mao, Xin Huang, Bing Yang,
Jiayun Xu, Junqiu Liu,* Guimin Luo, and Jiacong Shen
Key Laboratory for Supramolecular Structure and Materials of Ministry of Education, Jilin UniVersity,
Changchun 130012, People’s Republic of China
ReceiVed October 9, 2006
It has long been known that tellurium compounds are rather toxic to living organisms, and tellurium has
not been found in natural biomacromolecules to date. The principles of telluride toxicity in biological
processes are still controversial partly because of the lack of information on the biochemical features of
tellurium. In this contribution, we report our finding for the first time that telluroxides exhibit hydrolysis
capacity. For instance, 6,6′-telluroxy-bis(6-deoxy-â-cyclodextrin) acts as a hydrolase mimic and shows
a significant rate acceleration of 106 000 for the hydrolysis of 4,4′-dinitrodiphenyl carbonate.
Introduction
have been used as preventive antioxidants and chemotherapeutic
agents in the sense and realistically to simulate selenoenzyme
glutathione peroxidases.3 To our knowledge, however, in
addition to the antioxidant function no other biological properties
of tellurium compounds have been discovered thus far.
The tellurium compounds have been proven to contain an
extremely rich chemistry and are widely applied in many areas,
such as metallurgy, chemicals, electronic conductors, and so
on.1 In addition to these applications, there is little information
available on the biochemistry of tellurium compounds even now.
It has long been known that tellurium compounds are rather
toxic to living organisms, and tellurium has not been found in
natural biomacromolecules, including DNA, RNA, proteins,
sugars, and lipids. The principles of telluride toxicity in
biological processes are still controversial partly because of the
lack of information on the biochemical features of tellurium.1a,2
Therefore, it is very important to explore new biological
functions of metallic tellurium that can provide precious insights
into biological processes. As we know, tellurium compounds
Since the hydrolytic cleavage of ester bonds is involved in
many biological processes such as metabolic and signaling
biochemical pathways, hydrolases are ubiquitous and essential
for living organisms.4 The simulation of hydrolase functions
has been extensively studied by utilizing enzyme models in
various structural types since the mechanisms of these reactions
are known.4,5 However, hydrolase mimics using telluroxide
compounds is a novel and virgin area.
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10.1021/jo0620922 CCC: $37.00 © 2007 American Chemical Society
Published on Web 12/22/2006
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