Esters carboxypeptidase

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. 

Some of the pancreatic enzymes in the lumen include pancreatic amylase, pancreatic lipase, elastase, trypsin, a-chymotrypsin, and carboxypeptidase A. For example, the aspirin derivatives aspirin phenylalanine ethyl ester, aspirin phenyllactic ethyl ester, and aspirin phenylalanine amide have been studied as substrates for carboxypeptidase A [67,68], with the phenylalanine ethyl ester derivative proving to be the best substrate. This study indicated that the carboxypeptidase A may serve as a reconversion site for many drug derivatives. 

There are three fundamental questions concerning the mechanism of action of carboxypeptidase (1) How do metal ions affect ester and amide hydrolysis (2) Under what conditions will a neighbouring carboxyl group participate in ester and amide hydrolysis emd what is the mechanism of such participation (3) How will a metal ion affect... 

Parenthetically, it should be noted that there is evidence for the accumulation of an acylenzyme (i.e., a mixed anhydride with Glu-270) in the carboxypeptidase A-catalyzed hydrolysis of esters at low temperature, but this evidence does not include confirmation by chemical trapping experiments (Makinen et al, 1979 Kuo and Makinen, 1982 Suh et al., 1985). This would imply a nucleophilic, rather than promoted-water, pathway for ester hydrolysis. Sander and Witzel (1985) provided the only... 

Ring opening 615 to the methyl ester and separation gives rise to a procedure for the synthesis of 5 -(4-methylbenzyl)-p-phenylcysteine. Carboxypeptidase A... 

Mechanisms similar to the one described for carboxypeptidase appear to operate in the hydrolysis of amide and ester bonds catalyzed by a number of pro-... 

One possible mechanism for the hydrolysis of peptides or esters by carboxypeptidase A involves two steps with an anhydride (acyl-enzyme) intermediate.418 In the first step, the zinc(II) activates the substrate carbonyl group towards nucleophilic attack by a glutamate residue, resulting in the production of a mixed anhydride (127). Breakdown of the anhydride intermediate is rate determining with some substrates.419 An understanding of the chemistry of metal ion effects in anhydride hydrolysis is therefore of fundamental importance in regard to the mechanism of action of the enzyme. Until recently there have been few studies of metal ion-catalysed anhydride solvolysis. 

The carboxypeptidases are released from their inactive precursors in the pancreatic juice of animals. The most studied example is bovine carboxypeptidase A, which contains one mole of zinc per protein molecular weight of 34 500. These enzymes cleave the C-terminal amino acid residue from peptides and proteins, when the side-chain of the C-terminal residue is aromatic or branched aliphatic of l configuration. At least the first five residues in the substrate affect the activity of the enzyme. The enzyme also shows esterase activity. Esters and peptides inhibit each other competitively, indicating that the peptidase and esterase sites overlap, even if they are not the same. 

The mechanism of action of carboxypeptidase has also been much studied recently by the techniques of cryoenzymology, which have allowed the identification and characterization of reaction intermediates.519,520 This has shown the presence of two intermediates during the hydrolysis of both peptides and esters. In conjunction with chemical evidence, this work demonstrates that there is no acyl intermediate in either peptide or ester hydrolysis, and that these two substrates form different metallo intermediates and are hydrolyzed through different mechanisms. 

Specific ester substrates are also hydrolyzed with carboxypeptidase A. For instance, Makinen, Fukuyama, and Kuo (27) have recently studied the enzymic hydrolysis of 0-(trans-p-ch1orocinnamoyl)-L-B-phenyl actate (CICPI.) (47),and the spin labeled nitroxide ester substrate 0-3-(2,2,5,5-tetramethylpyrrol-inyl-l-oxyl)-propen-2-oyl-L-B-phenyllactate (TEPOPL) (48). They have shown that these reactions take place via the formation of a covalent intermediate (the mixed anhydride) which can be isolated under subzero temperature conditions. The hydrolysis of CICPL and TEPOPL catalyzed by carboxypeptidase A is consequently governed by the rate-limiting breaking of the acyl-enzyme. 

In a review of nucleophile isotope effects, results of studies of the hydrolysis of esters and amides by carboxypeptidase were discussed.10... 

In Table II are shown the results from kinetic studies with commercially available gastric and pancreatic enzymes. Trypsin was strongly inhibited, at least at a low concentration of casein as substrate. The hydrolysis of benzoyl arginine ethyl ester (BAEE) by trypsin was non-competitively inhibited, giving a 30% reduction of Vmax at 0.5 mg/ml of the LMW fraction. Carboxypepti-dase A, and to a lesser extent carboxypeptidase B, were non-competitively inhibited as well. Pepsin and chymotrypsin were not affected by the conditions used in these assays. 

With regard to the use of protease in the synthetic mode, the reaction can be carried out using a kinetic or thermodynamic approach. The kinetic approach requires a serine or cysteine protease that forms an acyl-enzyme intermediate, such as trypsin (E.C. 3.4.21.4), a-chymotrypsin (E.C. 3.4.21.1), subtilisin (E.C. 3.4.21.62), or papain (E.C. 3.4.22.2), and the amino donor substrate must be activated as the ester (Scheme 19.27) or amide (not shown). Here the nucleophile R3-NH2 competes with water to form the peptide bond. Besides amines, other nucleophiles such as alcohols or thiols can be used to compete with water to form new esters or thioesters. Reaction conditions such as pH, temperature, and organic solvent modifiers are manipulated to maximize synthesis. Examples of this approach using carboxypeptidase Y (E.C. 3.4.16.5) from baker s yeast have been described.219... 

In models for carboxypeptidase A we showed the intracomplex catalyzed hydrolysis of an ester by a metal ion and a carboxylate ion [106], which are the catalytic groups of carboxypeptidase A. Some mechanistic proposals for the action of carboxypeptidase involve an anhydride intermediate that then hydrolyzes to the product and the regenerated enzyme. Although we later found convincing evidence that the enzyme does not use the anhydride mechanism in cleaving peptides [96-99], it may well use such a mechanism with esters. In a mimic of part of this mechanism we showed [107], but see also Ref. 108, that we could achieve very rapid hydrolysis of an anhydride by bound Zn2+, which is the metal ion in the enzyme. In another model, a carboxylate ion and a phenolic hydroxyl group, which are in the enzyme active site, could cooperatively catalyze the cleavage of an amide by the anhydride mechanism [109]. 

Most of the experiments on incorporating amino acid esters into proteins during the plastein reaction have been carried out with papain, indicating that it is one of the best enzymes for this purpose. Other enzymes such as chymotrypsin (40) or carboxypeptidase Y from Sac-charomyces cerevisiae (41) are potent catalysts for peptide synthesis in homogeneous systems using N-acylamino acid esters of peptides as substrates and amino acid derivatives or peptides as nucleophile components. Adding organic co-solvents favored peptide bond synthesis (42,43). 

The N-hydroxy amino acid derivatives are likely to be applicable to other metalloproteases. Thermolysin is inhibited irreversibly at pH 7.2 by ClCH2CO-DL-HOLeu-OCH3 where HOLeu is N-hydroxyleucine (47). The inhibition reaction involves coordination of the hydroxamic acid functional group to the active-site zinc atom of the enzyme. This then places the chloroacetyl group adjacent to Glu-143, an essential catalytic residue of thermolysin (see Figure 9). An ester linkage is formed and the enzyme is inactivated irreversibly. This reagent also inactivated two neutral metalloproteases from B. subtilis, but reacted only very slowly with carboxypeptidase A (t1/2 > 3 d). 

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