Facilitation of intramolecular 1,2-shifts in radicals by protonation, and the mechanism of reactions catalysed by 5′-deoxyadenosylcobalamin

Abstract

Ab initio molecular orbital calculations show that 1,2-intramolecular shifts in simple organic radicals may be facilitated by protonation of the migrating group; the relevance of this result to reactions catalysed by 5′-deoxyadenosylcobalamin is demonstrated.