• Biochem. J. , 45 : 563 (1949).
• The activated fluoro-substituent is readily displaced by nucleophiles under mild conditions. The anomeric center of a carbohydrate has been protected as the 2,4-dinitrophenyl ether in the presence of DABCO in DMF: Rec. Trav. Chim., 99, 355 (1980).
• Has been used as a means of protection for the thiol group. The resulting thioether can be cleaved quantitatively with 2-mercaptoethanol: Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun., 29, 178 (1967).
• Used for labelling terminal amino acids in peptides: Biochem. J., 45, 563 (1949); Biochemistry, 20, 512 (1981).
• Can also be used for the masking of the imidazole ring in histidine as the 2,4-dinitrophenyl derivative during peptide synthesis, introduced in the presence of, e.g. K2CO3: Biochem. Biophys. Acta., 82, 412 (1964). The group can be cleaved by treatment with thioglycolic acid, mercaptoethanol, dithiothreitol or thiophenol: Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun., 29, 178 (1967); Biochemistry, 9, 5122 (1970). The electron withdrawing character of the group has been shown to reduce racemization promoted by the imidazole function: J. Biol. Chem., 247, 4768 (1972). See Appendix 6.