Carboxypeptidase, hydrolysis

The specificity of the acid carboxypeptidase displays the features typical of all pancreatic carboxypeptidases, hydrolysis of the specific substrate R-X-Y between X and Y (R = peptide residue, Z-, Bz-, Ac-). The amino acid in position Y must have a free carboxyl group dipeptides (having free amino group) are not hydrolyzed. The enzyme hydrolyzes most of the a-amino substituted peptides. The carboxypeptidase was inactive on a number of small amides tried at pH 3.0. A peculiarity of its specificity, however, was its inability to hydrolyze the peptide bond of tripeptides tried in the Table 11. 

Dmitrenok, A., Iwashita, T, Nakajima, T, Sakamoto, B., Namikoshi, M., and Nagai, H. (2006) New cyclic depsipeptides from the green alga Bryopsis species application of a carboxypeptidase hydrolysis reaction to the structure determination. Tetrahedron, 62, 1301-1308. 

An amino acid sequence is ambiguous unless we know the direction m which to read It—left to right or right to left We need to know which end is the N terminus and which IS the C terminus As we saw m the preceding section carboxypeptidase catalyzed hydrolysis cleaves the C terminal ammo acid and so can be used to identify it What about the N terminus ... 

Knowing how the protein chain is folded is a key ingredient m understanding the mechanism by which an enzyme catalyzes a reaction Take carboxypeptidase A for exam pie This enzyme catalyzes the hydrolysis of the peptide bond at the C terminus It is... 

FIGURE 27 19 Proposed mechanism of hydrolysis of a peptide catalyzed by carboxypeptidase A The peptide is bound at the active site by an ionic bond between its C terminal ammo acid and the positively charged side chain of arginine 145 Coordination of Zn to oxygen makes the carbon of the carbonyl group more positive and increases the rate of nucleophilic attack by water... 

Carboxypeptidase catalyzed hydrolysis can be used to identify the C terminal ammo acid The N terminus is determined by chemical means One reagent used for this purpose is Sanger s reagent 1 fluoro 2 4 dimtrobenzene (see Figure 27 9)... 

Carboxypeptidases are zinc-containing enzymes that catalyze the hydrolysis of polypeptides at the C-terminal peptide bond. The bovine enzyme form A is a monomeric protein comprising 307 amino acid residues. The structure was determined in the laboratory of William Lipscomb, Harvard University, in 1970 and later refined to 1.5 A resolution. Biochemical and x-ray studies have shown that the zinc atom is essential for catalysis by binding to the carbonyl oxygen of the substrate. This binding weakens the C =0 bond by... 

Carboxypeptidase A catalyses the hydrolysis of the terminal peptide bond in proteins during the process of digestion ... 

An artificial metalloenzyme (26) was designed by Breslow et al. 24). It was the first example of a complete artificial enzyme, having a substrate binding cyclodextrin cavity and a Ni2+ ion-chelated nucleophilic group for catalysis. Metalloenzyme (26) behaves a real catalyst, exhibiting turnover, and enhances the rate of hydrolysis of p-nitrophenyl acetate more than 103 fold. The catalytic group of 26 is a -Ni2+ complex which itself is active toward the substrate 1, but not toward such a substrate having no metal ion affinity at a low catalyst concentration. It is appearent that the metal ion in 26 activates the oximate anion by chelation, but not the substrate directly as believed in carboxypeptidase. 

There are two main classes of proteolytic digestive enzymes (proteases), with different specificities for the amino acids forming the peptide bond to be hydrolyzed. Endopeptidases hydrolyze peptide bonds between specific amino acids throughout the molecule. They are the first enzymes to act, yielding a larger number of smaller fragments, eg, pepsin in the gastric juice and trypsin, chymotrypsin, and elastase secreted into the small intestine by the pancreas. Exopeptidases catalyze the hydrolysis of peptide bonds, one at a time, fi"om the ends of polypeptides. Carboxypeptidases, secreted in the pancreatic juice, release amino acids from rhe free carboxyl terminal, and aminopeptidases, secreted by the intestinal mucosal cells, release amino acids from the amino terminal. Dipeptides, which are not substrates for exopeptidases, are hydrolyzed in the brush border of intestinal mucosal cells by dipeptidases. 

Procarboxypeptidase A is activated by the removal of a peptide of some 64 residues from the N-terminus by trypsin.153 This zymogen has significant catalytic activity. As well as catalyzing the hydrolysis of small esters and peptides, procarboxypeptidase removes the C-terminal leucine from lysozyme only seven times more slowly than does carboxypeptidase. Also, the zymogen hydrolyzes Bz-Gly-L-Phe with kcsA = 3 s-1 and KM = 2.7 mM, compared with values of 120 s 1 and 1.9 mM for the reaction of the enzyme.154 In contrast to the situation in chymotrypsinogen, the binding site clearly pre-exists in procarboxypeptidase, and the catalytic apparatus must be nearly complete. 

The angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) is a zinc carboxypeptidase that catalyzes the hydrolysis of the decapeptide angiotension I to the the octapeptide... 

Scheme 1. Cooperativity in carboxypeptidase catalysis of amide hydrolysis...

Although zinc, cadmium, and mercury are not members of the so-called main-group elements, their behavior is very similar because of their having complete d orbitals that are not normally used in bonding. By having the filled s orbital outside the closed d shell, they resemble the group IIA elements. Zinc is an essential trace element that plays a role in the function of carboxypeptidase A and carbonic anhydrase enzymes. The first of these enzymes is a catalyst for the hydrolysis of proteins, whereas the second is a catalyst for the equilibrium involving carbon dioxide and carbonate,... 

Figure 12.5 Zinc-hydroxide reaction mechanism for peptide hydrolysis by carboxypeptidase A. (Reprinted with permission from Lipscomb and Strater, 1996. Copyright (1996) American Chemical Society.)...

The intrinsic inertness of the peptide bond is demonstrated by a study of the chemical hydrolysis of N-benzoyl-Gly-Phe (hippurylphenylalanine, 6.37) [67], a reference substrate for carboxypeptidase A (EC 3.4.17.1). In pH 9 borate buffer at 25°, the first-order rate constant for hydrolysis of the peptide bond ( chem) was 1-3 x 10-10 s-1, corresponding to a tm value of 168 y. This is a very slow reaction indeed, confirming the intrinsic stability of the peptide bond. Because the analytical method used was based on monitoring the released phenylalanine, no information is available on the competitive hydrolysis of the amide bond to liberate benzoic acid. 

The kinetic constants for the carboxypeptidase A catalyzed hydrolysis at pH 9 and 25° were /ccal=61 s Km=0.29 mM. In other words, the enzyme afforded a rate enhancement of 11 orders of magnitude (kcJkchem= 4.7xlO11), and a catalytic proficiency of 15 orders of magnitude ((kL.JKm)/... 

The in vitro hydrolysis of insulin has been shown to be catalyzed by exopeptidases and endopeptidases. Carboxypeptidase A (EC 3.4.17.1) cleaves the C-terminus of the B-chain (ThrB3°) and that of the A-chain (AsnA21) [145], Leucyl aminopeptidase (EC 3.4.11.1) cleaves the N-terminus of the B-chain (PheB1) and can continue to shorten it. But, leucyl aminopeptidase appears also able to cleave the N-terminus of the A-chain (GlyA1). In addition to these exopeptidases, entire insulin is also cleaved by endopeptidases of the... 

Indeed, all three peptides were rather rapidly degraded by rat jejunal homogenates with tm values of 12-32 min. The peptides 6.84 and 6.85 were also hydrolyzed in rat and human jejunal fluid, whereas 6.86 was less sensitive [211], When examined in the presence of purified enzymes, the three peptides showed different reactivities. The peptides 6.84 and 6.85 were very rapidly degraded by chymotrypsin (f1/2 ca. 1 min) and rapidly by trypsin (tm ca. 20 min) [212], Hydrolysis by carboxypeptidase A was almost as fast as... 

These proteolytic enzymes are all endopeptidases, which hydrolyse links in the middle of polypeptide chains. The products of the action of these proteolytic enzymes are a series of peptides of various sizes. These are degraded further by the action of several peptidases (exopeptidases) that remove terminal amino acids. Carboxypeptidases hydrolyse amino acids sequentially from the carboxyl end of peptides. They are secreted by the pancreas in proenzyme form and are each activated by the hydrolysis of one peptide bond, catalysed by trypsin. Aminopeptidases, which are secreted by the absorptive cells of the small intestine, hydrolyse amino acids sequentially from the amino end of peptides. In addition, dipeptidases, which are structurally associated with the glycocalyx of the entero-cytes, hydrolyse dipeptides into their component amino acids. 

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