Prediction of Hydrolysis Pathways and Kinetics for Antibiotics under Environmental pH Conditions: A Quantum Chemical Study on Cephradine

Understanding hydrolysis pathways and kinetics of many antibiotics that have multiple hydrolyzable functional groups is important for their fate assessment. However, experimental determination of hydrolysis encounters difficulties due to time and cost restraint. We employed the density functional theory and transition state theory to predict the hydrolysis pathways and kinetics of cephradine, a model of cephalosporin with two hydrolyzable groups, two ionization states, two isomers and two nucleophilic attack directions. Results showed that the hydrolysis of cephradine at pH = 8.0 proceeds via opening of the β-lactam ring followed by intramolecular amidation. The predicted rate constants at different pH conditions are of the same order of magnitude as the experimental values, and the predicted products are confirmed by experiment. This study identified a catalytic role of the carboxyl group in the hydrolysis, and implies that the carboxyl group also plays a catalytic role in the hydrolysis of other cephalosporin and penicillin antibiotics. This is a first attempt to quantum chemically predict hydrolysis of an antibiotic with complex pathways, and indicates that to predict hydrolysis products under the environmental pH conditions, the variation of the rate constants for different pathways with pH should be evaluated.