Penta-coordinate phosphorous compounds and biochemistry

The relationship between penta-coordinate phosphorus compounds and biochemistry is briefly reviewed. Some interesting phenomena such as peptide formation, ester formation, ester exchange on phosphorus and N to O migration occur at room temperature when the amino group of amino acid is associated with phosphoryl group. Serine or threonine in conjugate of nucleoside-amino acid could recognize different nucleobases. N-phosphoryl Histine and Ser-His dipeptide could cleavage nucleic acid, protein and ester in neutral medium. It is found that the above phenomena all undergo penta-coordinate intermediate of phosphorus atom, which is proposed as the key factor to determine their activities.