Received June 24, 2006

Abstract:

The toxicity of germander, a herb used to treat obesity, is attributed to cytochrome P450 activation of the furan ring of its major diterpenoid component (teucrin A) into a reactive metabolite capable of adducting proteins. 1,4-Enedials have been proposed to be the reactive products of metabolism, possibly arising from a rearrangement of putative epoxide intermediates. We synthesized the enedial derivative of teucrin A as well as the enedial derived from a model furan, 3-(4-methoxy-benzyloxymethyl)-furan, by dimethyldioxirane oxidation and characterized the products of their reactions with amino acids and peptides. The reactions of the model enedial, 2-(4-methoxy-benzyloxymethyl)-but-2-enedial, with N-acetyl lysine (NAL) afforded regioisomeric N-alkyl-3-pyrrolin-2-ones, differing in the substitution on the double bond of the heterocyclic ring. Novel products formed in the reactions of the model enedial with N-acetyl cysteine (NAC) and both NAC/NAL uncovered the existence of tautomerization between the enedial and a hydroxyenal, which was manifest by the loss of 4-methoxybenzylalcohol and the incorporation of a second molecule of NAC. The reactions of teucrin A-enedial with NAC and NAL afforded analogues of the products observed with the model enedial, and the existence of the tautomeric equilibrium resulted in epimerization of the proton (H12) adjacent to the former furan ring. This work further illuminates the complex chemical behavior of unsaturated dialdehydes as an important class of toxic metabolites and lays the foundation for studies of the protein targets of teucrin A-enedial.