Amino acids phenylalanine analogues

Position 8. Position 8 is occupied by the aromatic amino acid phenylalanine. The benzene ring is required for pressor activity an inactive analogue is obtained when L-Phe is replaced by alanine or D-Phe. The free carboxyl group is also required for activity. Amide formation reduces potency to 3%. The decapeptide angiotensin I is inactive per se. 

An estimation of the amount of amino acid production and the production methods are shown ia Table 11. About 340,000 t/yr of L-glutamic acid, principally as its monosodium salt, are manufactured ia the world, about 85% ia the Asian area. The demand for DL-methionine and L-lysiae as feed supplements varies considerably depending on such factors as the soybean harvest ia the United States and the anchovy catch ia Pern. Because of the actions of D-amiao acid oxidase and i.-amino acid transamiaase ia the animal body (156), the D-form of methionine is as equally nutritive as the L-form, so that DL-methionine which is iaexpensively produced by chemical synthesis is primarily used as a feed supplement. In the United States the methionine hydroxy analogue is partially used ia place of methionine. The consumption of L-lysiae has iacreased ia recent years. The world consumption tripled from 35,000 t ia 1982 to 100,000 t ia 1987 (214). Current world consumption of L-tryptophan and i.-threonine are several tens to hundreds of tons. The demand for L-phenylalanine as the raw material for the synthesis of aspartame has been increasing markedly. 

Selection of these regulatory mutants is often done by using toxic analogues of amino adds for example p-fluoro-DL-phenylalanine is an analogue of phenylalanine. Mutants that have no feedback inhibition or repression to the amino add are also resistant to the analogue amino add. They are therefore selected for and can be used to overproduce the amino add. Some amino add analogues function as false co-repressors, false feedback inhibitors or inhibit the incorporation of foe amino acid into foe protein. 

More specific evidence came from affinity labeling with molecules which could react with specific amino acid group sat or adjacent to the substrate site. These labels were substrate analogues and competitive inhibitors. Substituted aryl alkyl ketones were used. TV-p-toluene-sulphonyl-L-phenylalanine chloromethyl ketone (TPCK) blocked the activity of chymotrypsin. Subsequent sequence analysis identified histidine 57 as its site of binding (see Hess, 1971, p 213, The Enzymes, 3rd ed.). Trypsin, with its preference for basic rather than aromatic residues adjacent to the peptide bond, was not blocked by TPCK but was susceptible to iV-p-toluenesulphonyl-L-lysine chloromethyl ketone (TLCK) (Keil, ibid, p249). 

Although DIOS-MS is mainly a tool for qualitative analysis, many examples have shown that quantitative analysis is possible when internal standards are used. These may either be isotope-labelled - mostly deuterated - compounds or structurally related analogues. For example, subsequent to electrospray deposition, amino acids such as phenylalanine and tyrosine have been successfully quantified by means of DIOS-MS using their deuterated analogues as internal standards. 

Only a few important representatives of the non-proteinogenic amino acids are mentioned here. The basic amino acid ornithine is an analogue of lysine with a shortened side chain. Transfer of a carbamoyl residue to ornithine yields citrulline. Both of these amino acids are intermediates in the urea cycle (see p.l82). Dopa (an acronym of 3,4-dihydroxy-phenylalanine) is synthesized by hydroxyla-tion of tyrosine. It is an intermediate in the biosynthesis of catecholamines (see p.352) and of melanin. It is in clinical use in the treatment of Parkinson s disease. Selenocys-teine, a cysteine analogue, occurs as a component of a few proteins—e.g., in the enzyme glutathione peroxidase (see p.284). 

The methods of peptidic synthesis, in the liquid phase as well as in the solid phase, have led to the preparation of numerous polypeptides that contain a fluorinated amino acid. Most of the examples concern peptidic hormones and neuropeptides, with replacement of either (1) a phenylalanine (or of a tyrosine) by an analogue containing a... 

Recently, the cyclopropanation of (Z)-4-benzyIidene-2-phenyl-5(4//)-oxazolone 621 with phenyldiazomethane was reported to give the spirocyclopropane, rac- 21 in very high yield. Subsequent ring opening and hydrolysis of rac- 21 generated frani-l-amino-2,3-diphenyl-l-cyclopropanecarboxylic acid, rac-828 (cadiPhe) (Scheme 7.256). This new, constrained phenylalanine analogue induces a y-tum in the sohd state when incorporated into model dipeptides. The enantiomers of the Al-Boc (Boc = tert-butyloxycarbonyl) methyl ester of 828 have been resolved by HPLC. 

Closely related in topographical structure, but with different and quite unique torsional properties, are the (3-isopropyl-substituted analogues of tyrosine 41,421 and phenylalanine. 43,441 All four isomers of each amino acid analogue have been prepared by asymmetric synthesis. In addition, the highly topographically constrained amino acid 3-isopropyl-2, 6 -dimethyl-tyrosine has been prepared by asymmetric synthesis/451... 

The P-tetralin amino acid induces the a-helical conformation by fixing the torsional angles along the peptide backbone at about -60° (< >) and -50° ( p).109 P-Tetralin amino acids may be regarded as cyclic-constrained phenylalanine analogues. As shown in Section II.A, this class of unnatural amino acids is known to stabilize distinct conformations in peptides since the two substituents at the a-cen-ter restrict the available conformational space. Cyclic a,a-dialkylated glycines and a-substituted alanines preferentially adopt a-helical conformations.205... 

The value of this process is illustrated by the preparation of the (3-amino acid analogue of phenylalanine. This process is particularly convenient because both the zinc insertion reaction, and the subsequent palladium catalysed... 

Capsaicin.—It is known that phenylalanine acts as the source of the vanillylamine moiety of capsaicin (132) in Capsicum annuum and that valine (136) is used for the construction of the acyl part.2 It has been noted107 that whilst radioactive valine (136) was incorporated into capsaicin (132) and its dihydro-derivative (133), L-[U-14C]leucine [as (137)] labelled the capsaicin analogues (134) and (135) in Capsicum fruits both amino-acid precursors were very considerably better incorporated into capsaicinoid metabolites by using spheroplasts prepared from the placentas of Capsicum fruits. or-Ketoisovaleric acid (138) and cr-ketoisocaproic acid... 

Incorporation of fluorine into peptides and proteins is usually achieved through biosynthetic routes, chemical synthesis, or a combination of these two methods. Each method has its own advantages and shortcomings, but each requires a 19F-labeled amino acid. The most commonly used ones are commercially available analogues of aromatic amino acids, such as tryptophan, phenylalanine, tyrosine, and phenylglycine. Aliphatic 19F-labeled amino acids are not commonly available and usually have to be synthesized. The synthesis of most fluorinated amino acids is described in detail in the literature [1, 9,10], For structure analysis of peptides and proteins, it is important that (i) the fluorine label is rigidly attached to the peptide backbone, (ii) the label does not alter the structure or function of the peptide, (iii) the extent of fluorination is restricted to avoid multiple signals, and (iv)... 

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