Investigation of the Reactivity of Phosphate Esters.

Abstract

It is a well recognised fact that phosphate esters play a vital role in Living system. There is hardly any thing going on in the living cell that does not involve phosphate esters in one form or the other. To understand the chemistry of life it is necessary to understand the behaviour of simple phosphate esters, acting as model compounds for naturally occurring substances, particularly towards hydrolysis. Although phosphate mono- and diesters have been thoroughly investigated, only scattered information is available about the phosphate triesters. In the present investigation, three phosphate triesters belonging to the series diphenyl substituted-aryl phosphates have been prepared and the rates of their hydrolysis to diphenyl phosphate with the release of a phenolate anion, under different conditions, have been measured. As a result of these investigations, a general pattern of their behaviour towards hydrolysis has become clear and an extended study leading to the possible mechanistic interpretations of the biological reactions, can now conveniently be made. It has also been observed that the alkaline hydrolysis of diphenyl p-nitrophenyl phosphate is catalysed by β-Cyclodextrin, suggesting that cyclodextrin might be a suitable species for catalysing the hydrolysis reactions of a wide variety of organic phosphate esters