Nucleophilicity of Glutathione: A Link to Michael Acceptor Reactivities

Deprotonated glutathione is among the most potent biological nucleophiles and plays an important physiological role in cellular detoxification by forming covalent conjugates with Michael acceptors. The electrophilicity E of various Michael acceptors was characterized recently according to the Patz–Mayr relation lg k2=sN(N+E). We now determined the nucleophilic reactivity (N, sN) of glutathione (GSH) in aqueous solution at 20 °C to connect published GSH reactivities (kGSH) with Mayr's electrophilicity scale (E). In this way, electrophilicities E of more than 70 Michael acceptors could be estimated, which can now be used to systematically predict novel reactions with the multitude of nucleophiles whose nucleophilicity parameters N/sN are known.