Photochemistry of phosphate esters: .alpha.-keto phosphates as a photoprotecting group for caged phosphate

Irradiation of two families of α-keto phosphates yielded rearrangement products and deprotected phosphates as the major products. For both sets of reactants, the triplet excited state of the ketone reacted with quantum efficiencies that ranged from 0.10 to 0.38. Desyl phosphates yielded 2-phenylbenzo[b]furan independent of the nature of the solvent whereas phosphate esters of α-hydroxy-p-methoxyacetophenone rearranged to esters of p-methoxyphenylacetic acid. In all cases, the phosphate group with the remaining ligands intact was released in nearly quantitative yield. The desyl group was further developed as a cage ligand for cAMP