N-Hydroxysuccinimide

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
N-Hydroxysuccinimide
Identifiers
CAS number 6066-82-6 YesY
PubChem 80170
ChemSpider 72416 N
UNII MJE3791M4T N
Jmol-3D images Image 1
Properties
Molecular formula C4H5NO3
Molar mass 115.09 g/mol
Appearance Colourless solid
Melting point 95 °C; 203 °F; 368 K
Related compounds
Related imides Succinimide
N-Bromosuccinimide
 N (verify) (what is: YesY/N?)
Except where noted otherwise, data are given for materials in their standard state (at 25 °C (77 °F), 100 kPa)
Infobox references

N-Hydroxysuccinimide (NHS) is an organic compound with the formula C4H5NO3. Being slightly acidic, it is an irritant to skin, eyes and mucous membranes.

Activating reagent

NHS is commonly found in organic chemistry or biochemistry where it is used as an activating reagent for carboxylic acids. Activated acids (basically esters with a good leaving group) can react with amines to form amides for example, whereas a normal carboxylic acid would just form a salt with an amine.

Synthesis

A common way to synthesize an NHS-activated acid is to mix NHS with the desired carboxylic acid and a small amount of an organic base in an anhydrous solvent. A coupling reagent such as dicyclohexylcarbodiimide DCC or ethyl(dimethylaminopropyl) carbodiimide (EDC) is then added to form a highly reactive activated acid intermediate. NHS reacts to form a less labile activated acid. The group itself is usually written as SuO- or -OSu in chemical notation. Such an ester with an acid and NHS, sometimes called succinate ester, is stable enough to be purified and stored at low temperatures in the absence of water and, as such, is commercially available. NHS esters are commonly used for protein modification (e.g. an NHS ester of fluorescein, are commercially available, and can be added to a protein to obtain a fluorescently labeled protein in one simple reaction and purification step).

Alternatives

Some alternatives to NHS are the water-soluble analog sulfo-NHS, hydroxybenzotriazole (HOBt), 1-hydroxy-7-azabenzotriazole (HOAt) and pentafluorophenol.

References

    This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike; additional terms may apply for the media files.