biogenesis of triterpene dimers from orthoquinones related to quinonemethides: theoretical study on the reaction mechanism
;Mariana Quesadas-Rojas;Gonzalo J. Mena-Rejón;David Cáceres-Castillo;Gabriel Cuevas;Ramiro F. Quijano-Quiñones
Journal of ethnopharmacology2016Vol. 21pp. 1551-
188
quesadas-rojas2016moleculesbiogenesis
Abstract
The biogenetic origin of triterpene dimers from the Celastraceae family has been proposed as assisted hetero-Diels-Alder reaction (HDA). In this work, computational calculation of HDA between natural quinonemethides (tingenone and isopristimerol) and hypothetical orthoquinones has been performed at the M06-2X/6-31G(d) level of theory. We have located all the HDA transition states supporting the biogenetic route via HDA cycloadditions. We found that all reactions take place through a concerted inverse electron demand and asynchronous mechanism. The enzymatic assistance for dimer formation was analyzed in terms of the calculated transition state energy barrier.