Catalytic beta-cyclodextrin enzyme mimics as soman hydrolases

The use of chemically accessible artificial enzymes as in vivo scavengers of soman offers an attractive approach for protecting the soldier from the debilitating and often fatal effects of this organophosphate poison. The ability of modified B-cyclodextrins to scavenge soman both in vitro and in vivo has been demonstrated. These enzyme mimics however are stoichiometric in their reaction, consuming and being consumed by one molecule of soman. The ability to inactivate multiple soman molecules, that is to function as a true catalytic enzyme, would further enhance scavenging by a factor that would be proportional to the turnover rate. We now report the synthesis and activity of a series of iodosobenzoic acid-B-cyclodextrin conjugates (IBA-BCD) that catalytically hydrolyzes soman. Two assays for enzyme like activity were conducted. The first for enhanced scavenging ability demonstrated that the IBA-BCD conjugates enhanced the scavenging of soman by nearly three orders of magnitude in a structure dependent manner compared to soman scavenging by BCD. The second assay, for catalytic activity, demonstrated that the tested compounds were able to scavenge a stoichiometric excess of soman (with turnover rates in the range of 5 to 13 mole soman/mole mimic/min). This is in contrast to stoichiometric scavengers, tested asmore » controls, that were able to scavenge only one soman per cyclodextrin molecule.« less