Effect of temperature on the acidolysis of N ‐acyl‐ N ,α,α‐trialkyl glycine amides as related to the nature of substituents

The C ‐terminal amide bond of N ‐acyl‐ N ,α,α‐trialkyl glycine amides is labile to acid and this has been currently assigned to steric crowding within the amino acid residue. However, our previous work has shown that in the acidolysis of some of these compounds steric hindrance seems to play a less important role than what one would expect. Thus, the cleavage of two sets of such compounds bearing different degrees of crowding was investigated at five different temperatures in order to clarify the effect of structure on reactivity in terms of enthalpy and entropy of activation. The compounds exhibited an Arrhenius‐type behaviour, and both enthalpies and entropies of activation were calculated by taking advantage of the transition state theory. In addition, the kinetic data were analysed in terms of isokinetic relationships in order to find evidence to support that the compounds react under the same mechanism. The changes in the reaction rate are governed by the changes in both the enthalpy and the entropy of activation, which are related to bond energy and steric hindrance, respectively. In general, the entropies of activation are very negative for all compounds investigated, which reflects large steric constrictions associated with the formation of the transition state. In addition, they are very sensitive to the structure of the substrates. Copyright © 2005 European Peptide Society and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.