Asparagine, structure

FIGURE 9.26 The carbohydrate tnoiedes of glycoproteins may be linked to the protein via (a) serine or threonine residues (in the O-linked saccharides) or (b) asparagine residues (in the N-linked saccharides), (c) N-Linked glycoproteins are of three types high mannose, complex, and hybrid, the latter of which combines structures found in the high mannose and complex saccharides. 

Until recently, the catalytic role of Asp ° in trypsin and the other serine proteases had been surmised on the basis of its proximity to His in structures obtained from X-ray diffraction studies, but it had never been demonstrated with certainty in physical or chemical studies. As can be seen in Figure 16.17, Asp ° is buried at the active site and is normally inaccessible to chemical modifying reagents. In 1987, however, Charles Craik, William Rutter, and their colleagues used site-directed mutagenesis (see Chapter 13) to prepare a mutant trypsin with an asparagine in place of Asp °. This mutant trypsin possessed a hydrolytic activity with ester substrates only 1/10,000 that of native trypsin, demonstrating that Asp ° is indeed essential for catalysis and that its ability to immobilize and orient His is crucial to the function of the catalytic triad. 

Chemical Name L-Asparagine amidohydrolase Common Name Colapase L-Asnase Structural Formula ... 

Figure 47-4. Structures of the major types of asparagine-linked oligosaccharides. The boxed area encloses the pentasaccharide core common to all N-linked glycoproteins. (Reproduced, with permission, from Kornfeld R, Kornfeld S Assembly of asparagine-linked oligosaccharides. Annu Rev Biochem 1985 54 631.)...

Structural analysis of the two pectate lyases PelC and PelE (5, 6), demonstrated that these proteins fold in a large heHx of parallel P strands. A stack of asparagine residues parallel to the helix probably plays a role in the stabUity of this structure. Identification of the structurally conserved amino adds lead to a reaHgnment of the protein sequences (7). In addition to Erwinia extracellular pectate lyases, the multiple aHgnment indudes the Bacillus subtilis pectate lyase, Aspergillus tdger and E. carotovora pectin lyases and plant proteins. 

Peters, D., and J. Peters. 1984b. Quantum Theory of the Structure and Bonding in Proteins Part 16. The asparagine dipeptide. J. Mol. Struct. (Theochem) 109, 137-148. 

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