Structural effects on the reactivity of substrates and inhibitors in the epoxidation system of Pseudomonas oleovorans.

The epoxidation reaction catalyzed by an enzyme system of Pseudomonas oleovorans exhibits a substrate specificity different from that expected on the basis of chemical reactivity in non-enzymatic epoxidation reactions. Cyclic and internal olefins, aromatic compounds and styrene are not epoxidated. The reactivity of straight chain diolefins is maximal for octadiene and falls off rapidly as the carbon chain is shortened, but decreases only slightly as the chain is lengthened. In contrast, methyl group hydroxylation is less sensitive to decreasing chain length. As a consequence, propylene and 1-butene are hydroxylated but not epoxidated by this enzyme system. With the substrate 1-decene, which is capable of undergoing both epoxidation and hydroxylation, the former reaction predominates. Methyl imidoesters were found to be inhibitors of enzymatic epoxidation, and the potency of a homologous series of imidoester inhibitors was examined. The results parallel the substrate specificity patterns observed, and support the conclusion that the mode of substrate binding severely moderates the inherent chemical reactivity of the activated oxygen in this system. The effect of the bifunctional imidoester, dimethyladipimidate, was also examined and the results compared with those obtained in other investigations.