Metal ion-promoted cleavage of nucleoside diphosphosugars: a model for reactions of phosphodiester bonds in carbohydrates.

Cleavage of five different nucleoside diphosphosugars has been studied in the presence of Cu(2+) and Zn(2+) complexes. The results show that metal ion catalysts promote the cleavage via intramolecular transesterification whenever a neighbouring HO group can adopt a cis-orientation with respect to the phosphate. The HO group attacks the phosphate and two monophosphate products are formed. If such a nucleophile is not available, Cu(2+) complexes are able to promote a nucleophilic attack of an external nucleophile, e.g. a water molecule or metal ion coordinated HO ligand, on phosphate. With the Zn(2+) complex, this was not observed.