While the reactive pocket of many enzymes has been shown to modify reactions of substrates by changing their chemical properties, examples of reactions whose stereochemical course is completely reversed are exceedingly rare. We report herein a class of water-soluble host assemblies that is capable of catalyzing the substitution reaction at a secondary benzylic carbon center to give products wit...

Our purpose is to understand the mechanism through which pH affects the competition between base-induced elimination and substitution. To this end, we have quantum chemically investigated the competition between elimination and substitution pathways in H2O+C2H5OH2 (+) and OH(-)+C2H5OH, that is, two related model systems that represent, in a generic manner, the same reaction under acidic and bas...

The retro-ene reaction is a common reaction of metastable immonium ions, leading to the expulsion of an alkene molecule. The kinetic energy release that accompanies this reaction decreases with alkyl substitution on the γ-carbon of the immonium ion. A number of authors have taken this result to indicate that the retro-ene reaction proceeds in a non-concerted manner via a carbocation intermediat...