Singlet oxygen oxidation of methyl linoleate: Isolation and characterization of the NaBH4-reduced products

The mixture of diene hydroperoxides from methylene blue-sensitized oxidation of methyl linoleate was reduced with NaBH₄ and the resulting alcohols were separated by high pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC). Four diene alcohols were isolated in approximately equal yields from adsorption and reversed phase HPLC; the isomers were identified as methyl esters of 9-hydroxy-10,12-, 10-hydroxy-8,12-, 12-hydroxy-9,13- and 13-hydroxy-9,11-octadecadienoate. Formation of equal yields of both conjugated and nonconjugated diene alcohols from methyl linoleate is characteristic of singlet oxygen oxidations. The detection of the easily separated nonconjugated isomer methyl 10-hydroxy-trans-8,cis-12-octadecadienoate from methyl linoleate is proposed as a test to probe the involvement of singlet oxygen in biological oxidations. A preliminary report of these results was presented at the 177th meeting of the American Chemical Society, Honolulu, HI, April 1–6, 1979; see abstracts of papers, paper No. ORGN-375.