Lewis acids (ZnCl2, CoCl2, NiCl2, TiCl4, and CdCl2) when supported on silica gel can effectively catalyze transesterification of organophosphotriesters. In anhydrous acetonitrile and in the presence of excess alcohol, such reactions follow pseudo-first-order kinetics. Progress and efficacy of these reactions were monitored by UV-vis and 31P NMR spectroscopy.

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Metallohydrolases with dinuclear-zinc active sites perform many important biological hydrolytic reactions on a variety of substrates. In this regard, metallo-β-lactamases (mβ1, class B) represent a unique subset of zine hydrolases that hydrolyze the β-lactam ring in several antibiotics. The antibiotic resistance that results from this hydrolysis is becoming an increased threat for the clinical community. These metalloenzymes can hydrolyze a wide range of β-lactam substrates, such as cephamycins and imipenem that are generally resistant t the serine-containing β-lactamases. Therefore, the clinical application of the entire range of antibiotics is severely compromised in bacteria that produce mβls. Due to the lack of information on the mechanism of mβls, to-date, no clinically known inhibitors is there for mβls. In this present study, we synthesized several mono and dizinc complexes as models for the mβls and investigated the differences in their hydrolytic properties. This study supports the assumption that the second zinc in the dinuclear enzymes does not directly involve in the catalysis, but may orient the substrates for hydrolysis and the basic amino acid residues such as Asp and His may activate the zinc-bound water molecules, fulfilling the role of the second zinc in the mononuclear enzymes. The effect of various side chains on the hydrolysis of some commonly used cephalosporin antibiotics by mβl from B.cereus is described. It is shown that the cephalosporins having heterocyclic thiol side chains are more resistance to mβl-mediated hydrolysis than the antibiotics that do not have such side chains. This is partly due to the inhibition of enzyme activity by the thiol moieties eliminated during the hydrolysis. It is also observed that the heterocyclic side chains in pure form inhibit the lactamase activity of mβl as well as its synthetic mimics. The mode of binding of these heterocyclic side chains to the zinc has been analyzed from the crystal structure of the tetranuclear zinc complexes. The theoretical studies suggest that the eliminated heterocyclic thiols undergo a rapid tautomerism to produce the corresponding thiones. These thiones are found to irreversibly inhibit the LPO-catalyzed iodination reaction. The reaction of various thiones with I2 leads to the formation of thione-iodine complexes similar to that of the most commonly used antithyroid drug methimazole(MMI). These observations suggest that some of the latest generation of antibiotics may show negative effects on thyroid gland upon hydrolysis. Synthetic organophosphorus compounds have been used extensively as pesticides and petroleum additives. These compounds are very toxic to mammals and their widespread use in agriculture leads to serious environmental problems. Therfore, degradation of organophosphorus trimesters and remediation of associated contaminated sites are of worldwide concern. In this regards, the bacterial phsophotriesterase (PTE) enzyme plays an important role in degrading a wide range of organophosphorus esters and the active side of PTE has been shown to be very similar to that of mβl. This identification prompted us to check the hydrolysis of phosphotriesters by the mβl and its mimics. It has been observed that the dinuclear zine(II) complexes that do not allow a strong binding of phosphodiestes would be a better PTE mimics.