Adenosylcobinamide plus exogenous, sterically hindered, putative axial bases: a reinvestigation into the cause of record levels of Co-C heterolysis

A reinvestigation of an earlier Ph.D. thesis (Sirovatka, J. M. Ph.D. Thesis, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, 1999) is reported herein. That thesis examined the thermolysis reaction of AdoCbi(+)BF(4)(-) in ethylene glycol solution with exogenous bases, N-methylimidazole (N-Me-Im) and the sterically hindered 1,2-dimethylimidazole, (1,2-Me(2)-Im), 2-methylpyridine (2-Me-py), and 2,6-dimethylpyridine (2,6-Me(2)-py). In the present work, multiple purities of each base have been utilized as a check to see if impurities in the nitrogenous bases are causing the observed homolysis and heterolysis product distributions as others have implied (Trommel, J. S.; Warncke, K.; Marzilli, L. G. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2001, 123, 3358). The "impurity hypothesis" is disproven by a series of results, including the following: N-Me-Im displays an invariant 52 +/- 10% heterolysis and the 1,2-Me(2)-Im system displays an invariant 83 +/- 7% heterolysis as a function of different base purification methods. Moreover, 2-Me-py and 2,6-Me(2)-py also display an invariant approximately 16 +/- 5% heterolysis as a function of different purification methods. What is responsible for the high levels of Co-C heterolysis in the AdoCbi(+) plus sterically bulky base thermolyses was uncovered via a revisitation of our four, earlier alternative hypotheses for the enhanced Co-C heterolysis (Sirovatka, J. M.; Finke, R. G. Inorg. Chem. 1999, 38, 1697). Our prior number one alternative hypothesis is shown to be correct: the added bases simply deprotonate the ethylene glycol solvent, forming ethylene glycolate anion and base-H(+)() as the key agents behind the previously ill-understood Co-C heterolyses. Also reported are Co(II)Cbi(+) titrations with five bases (1,2-Me(2)-Im, N-Me-Im, pyridine, 2-MePy, and 2,6-Me(2)-py). These experiments confirm Marzilli and co-workers' (op. cit.) results by showing that sterically hindered bases do not bind to Co(II)Cbi(+); therefore, Co(II)Cbi(+) EPR literature showing binding of bulky pyridines is erroneous as is the previously reported binding of bulky pyridine bases to Co(II)Cbi(+) by UV-vis spectroscopy (Sirovatka, J. Ph.D. Thesis, op. cit.). Also reported is our current best synthesis and purification of AdoCbi(+)BF(4)(-), work that builds off our 1987 synthesis of AdoCbi(+)BF(4)(-) (Hay, B. P.; Finke, R. G. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1987, 109, 8012). Finally, the multiple, compounding errors which have caused problems in this project are listed, notably errors in the protein X-ray crystallography literature, the EXAFS literature, the Co(II)Cbi(+) plus bulky-bases EPR literature, the misleading B(12)-model literature, the erroneous experimental work (Sirovatka, op. cit.) and thus incorrect conclusions in one of our prior papers, as well as the erroneous implications in parts of the Marzilli and co-workers paper (op. cit.). It is hoped that a forthright reporting of these errors will help others avoid similar mistakes in the future when studying complex, bioinorganic systems.