Research On Synthesis Of Coenzyme Q₁₀, Ubiquinone

The Coenzyme Q₁₀, also commonly called Ubiquinone, is a kind of vitamin, which exists widely in the body of many animals including human and plants. It has the ability of transporting hydrogen in respiration system, and anti-oxidation. With the developments of researches on its applications, it is found that coenzyme Q₁₀ has good cure ability for cardiovascular diseases, such as heart-angina, arrhythmia and hypertension. Besides, it can assist the cure of hepatitis, cancer etc and is useful in the improvement of immunotherapy. As coenzyme Q₁₀ has the ability of anti-oxidation, it has also been used in health-care and cosmetics.Based on coenzyme Q₁₀'s wide applications, many researchers pay more attentions to synthesize it in different ways. A practical route of synthesizing coenzyme Q₁₀ is researched in this paper.Ubiquinone was synthesized from 2,3,4,5-tetramethoxytoluene and solanesol as starting materials in this paper. First of all, the solanesyl bromide was given by reaction of solanesol and phosphorous tribromide, which reacted with ethyl acetylacetate to afford ethyl solanesyl acetylacetate. And then solanesyl acetone was got from hydrolysis, acidification, decarboxylation. The 1-solanesyl 2-vinyl propanol-2, called isodecaprenol, was given by reaction between solanesyl acetone and vinyl magnesium bromide.Ubiquinone was synthesized by condensation of isodecaprenol with 2,3,4,5-tetramethoxyl-toluene in presence of the catalytic amount of boron trifluoride etherate (BF₃.OEt₂), followed by the oxidation in the presence of CAN (Cerium ammonium nitrate;Ce(NH₄)2(NO₃)₆). The overall yield of above 6 steps was 18.5%.The above data to synthesize ubiquinone are useful to further research.