Natural substrate

BVdU is degraded by thymidine phosphorylase more rapidly than the natural substrate, thymidine. This rapid enzymic degradation may present a problem in its clinical use. Moreover, herpes vimses develop resistance to BVdU, apparendy because of mutant vimses that have lower thymidine kinase activity. G. D. Seade has dropped further development of BVdU because of increased animal tumor incidence induced by prolonged dosing (1). 

AH 2/3 -dideoxynucleoside analogues are assumed to be intraceUularly phosphorylated to thek active form (5 -triphosphate), and then targeted at the vims-associated reverse transcriptase. The rate and extent of the 2 /3 -dideoxynucleosides phosphorylate to the 5 -triphosphates may be of equal or greater importance than the differences in the relative abiUties of these 5 -triphosphates to inhibit the vkal reverse transcriptase (171). At the level of vkal reverse transcriptase, the 5 -triphosphate of AZT and other dideoxynucleosides may either serve as a competitive inhibitor with respect to the natural substrates or may act as an alternate substrate, thus leading to chain termination (172). 

Examples were given above of stereocontrol due to substrate bias of a steric nature. Substrate bias can also result from coordinative or chelate effects. Some instances of coordinative (or chelate) substrate bias are shown retrosynthetically in Chart 18. 

The nature of the penicillin derivatives accessible by this "feeding" route was severely limited by the fact that the acylat-ing enzyme of the Penicillium molds would accept only those carboxylic acids which bore at least some resemblance to its natural substrates. A breakthrough in this field was achieved by the finding that rigid exclusion of all possible side-chain substrate from the culture medium afforded 6-APA as the main fermentation... 

It seems reasonable that an enzyme which used poraaminobenzoic acid as a substrate might be deceived by sulfanilamide. The two compounds are very similar in size and shape and in many chemical properties. To explain the success of sulfanilamide, it is proposed that the amide can form an enzyme-substrate complex that uses up the active centers normally occupied by the natural substrate. 

Usually fairly high concentrations of such a drug are needed for effective control of an infection because the inhibitor (the false substrate) should occupy as many active centers as possible, and also because the natural substrate will probably have a greater affinity for the enzyme. Thus the equilibrium must be influenced and, by using a high concentration of the false substrate, the false substrate-enzyme complex can be made to predominate. The bacteria, deprived of a normal metabolic process, cannot grow and multiply. Now the body s defense mechanisms can take over and destroy them. 

Atovaquone, a hydroxynaphthoquinone, selectively inhibits the respiratory chain of protozoan mitochondria at the cytochrome bcl complex (complex III) by mimicking the natural substrate, ubiquinone. Inhibition of cytochrome bcl disrupts the mitochondrial electron transfer chain and leads to a breakdown of the mitochondrial membrane potential. Atovaquone is effective against all parasite stages in humans, including the liver stages. 

Eflornithine (difluoromethylornithine, DFMO) inhibits the ornithine decarboxylase of the polyamine pathway, in both the trypanosome and the mammalian cell, by acting as an irreversible competitor of the natural substrate ornithine. Inhibition of ornithine decarboxylase results in depletion of the polyamines, putrescine, spermidine and spermine, which are essential for cell proliferation. Eflornithine selectively harms the parasite and not the mammalian cells, despite acting as an ornithine decarboxylase inhibitor in both cell types. This selectivity is explained by the lower rate of ornithine decarboxylase production in the parasite, as compared to mammalian cells. Due to the high turnover rate, mammalian cells are capable of quickly replenishing inhibited ornithine decarboxylase by newly... 

Figure 10.4 Natural substrates of the N-acetyIneuraminic acid aldolase (NeuA) and synthase (NeuS).

Figure 10.10 Natural substrates of the 2-keto-3-deoxy-monno-octosonic acid aldolase, and nonnatural sialic acids obtained by KdoA catalysis.

Literally hundreds of aldehydes have so far been tested successfully by enzymatic assay and preparative experiments as a replacement for (18) in rabbit muscle FruA catalyzed aldol additions [16,25], and most of the corresponding aldol products have been isolated and characterized. The rabbit FruA can discriminate racemic dl-(18), its natural substrate, with high preference for the D-antipode, but kinetic enantioselec-tivity for nonionic aldehydes is rather low [84,89]. 

Figure 10.16 Natural substrates of microbial deoxysugar phosphate aldolases.

In other cases, new asymmetric centers may be built into the substrate so that the stereochemical course of the overall reaction may be elucidated. The preferred conformation of the natural substrate when bound to the enzyme may be deduced and regions in the space around the enzyme-bound substrate where substituents can be tolerated may be inferred. 

After me ANPs (i.e., cidofovir, adefovir, and tenofovir) have been released (intra-or extraceUularly) from their prodrugs through the mtervention of infra- or extracellular esterases, they need only two phosphorylation steps to be converted to their active metabolites (i.e., HPMPCpp, PMEApp, and PMPApp), which will then compete with the natural substrates (dCTP for HPMPCpp, and dATP for PMEApp and PMPApp) for incorporation into me viral DNA (Fig. 6a). 

---