Glutamine cyclization

Glutamine cyclizes to form pyrrolidine carboxylic acid (shown in Figure 4.3) ... 

We have already described the biosynthesis of glutamate and glutamine. Proline is a cyclized derivative of glutamate (Fig. 22-10). In the first step of praline synthesis, ATP reacts with the y-carboxyl group of glutamate to form an acyl phosphate, which is reduced by NADPH or NADH to glutamate y-semialdehyde. This intermediate undergoes rapid spontaneous cyclization and is then reduced further to yield proline. 

Starting from resin-bound diamines 25, the parallel synthesis of 1,7-disubstituted l,3,5-triazepane-2,4-diones 26 was carried out using phenyl isocyanatoformate (Fig. 7).36 To avoid regioselectivity problems in the cyclization step, amino acids that generate reactive functionalities after reduction (asparagine, glutamine, lysine) were not included in the R1 position. 

This was first foimd by Sanger et al. (1955) in a peptide from insulin and was observed with other peptides by Hirs et al. (1956) and Smyth et al. (1962). The reaction appears to occur when acidic buffers or dilute acids are employed for isolation of peptides. Conversion of the cyclic pyrrolidone carboxyl residue to a glutamyl residue is obtained on mild hydrolysis in dilute acids or alkalies. The cyclization reaction leads to difficulties when sequence methods are used which proceed from the amino-terminal end of a peptide. In addition, this reaction can occur when an internal glutamine residue becomes amino-terminal in the course of stepwise sequence analysis under acidic conditions, as in the Edman methods. An incorrect sequence for a peptide from ribonuclease was deduced as the result of cyclization of amino-terminal glutamine and acidic destruction of serine and threonine in the same peptide (Smyth et al., 1962). 

Cyclization of aspartic acid and asparagine to form aspartimides, and to a lesser extent of glutamic acid and glutamine to form glutarimide is an acid- and base-catalyzed common side reaction in peptide synthesis (see also Section 2.2.2). In SPPS it is particularly troublesome when Asp-Gly, Asp-Ala, and Asp-Ser sequences are present,but also with Asp-Asn.P P Piperidine-catalyzed aspartimide formation can be very rapid,and in this context DBU is even worse than piperidine.P The formation of aspartimide is reduced by the addition of HOBt or 2,4-dinitrophenol, but more efficiently it is reduced by protecting the aspartyl amide bond with the 2-hydroxy-4-methoxybenzyl (Hmb) group (see Section 2.3.2).P 1... 

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