Skip to content
EntityQ6743002· pop 13· linked from 76 articles

Also known as maleic imide

Maleimide is a chemical compound with the formula H2C2(CO)2NH (see diagram). This unsaturated imide is an important building block in organic synthesis. The name is a contraction of maleic acid and imide, the -C(O)NHC(O)- functional group. Maleimides are also a class of derivatives of the parent maleimide where the NH group is replaced with alkyl or aryl groups such as a methyl or phenyl, respectively. The substituent can also be a small molecule (such as biotin, a fluorescent dye, an oligosaccharide, or a nucleic acid), a reactive group, or a synthetic polymer such as polyethylene glycol. Hum

Research

16,146 papers

via PubMed

~6 min read

Encyclopedic overview

7 sections
Contents
  • Reactions
  • Natural maleimides
  • Biotechnology and pharmaceutical applications
  • Technological applications
  • See also
  • References
  • External links

Maleimide is a chemical compound with the formula H2C2(CO)2NH (see diagram). This unsaturated imide is an important building block in organic synthesis. The name is a contraction of maleic acid and imide, the -C(O)NHC(O)- functional group. Maleimides are also a class of derivatives of the parent maleimide where the NH group is replaced with alkyl or aryl groups such as a methyl or phenyl, respectively. The substituent can also be a small molecule (such as biotin, a fluorescent dye, an oligosaccharide, or a nucleic acid), a reactive group, or a synthetic polymer such as polyethylene glycol. Human hemoglobin chemically modified with maleimide-polyethylene glycol is a blood substitute called MP4.

==Reactions== Many analogues of maleimide are prepared by treating maleic anhydride with amines followed by dehydration.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “maleimide” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.