Pepsin identification

Globular proteins were much more difficult to prepare in an ordered form. In 1934, Bernal and Crowfoot (Hodgkin) found, that crystals were better preserved if they were kept in contact with their mother liquor sealed in thin-walled glass capillaries. By the early 1940s crystal classes and unit cell dimensions had been determined for insulin, horse haemoglobin, RNAase, pepsin, and chymotrypsin. Complete resolution of the structures required identification of the crystal axes and some knowledge of the amino acid sequence of the protein—requirements which could not be met until the 1950s. 

In 2000 the Miller group provided a proof-of-principle study of Pd pi-allyl chemistry for library selection in the presence of a biomolecule [44]. In this approach, Pd(0) chemistry was employed to generate a library of cyclopentene-1,4-diesters in halogenated solvent (Fig. 1.10). This was allowed to equilibrate across a dialysis membrane with an enzyme target (pepsin) in buffered aqueous solution. LC-MS analysis of the library allowed identification of compound 24 as a library member amplified in the presence... 

Hypertensin is soluble in alcohol, glacial acetic acid, phenol, and water, and insoluble in ether (61). Because it is inactivated by tyrosinase it probably contains a catechol or phenol group, and by amine oxidase, an amine group on an a-carbon atom (Figure 2). Hypertensin is inactivated by certain phenolic, catecholic, and amine oxidases, by pepsin, trypsin, chymotrypsin, and carboxypeptidase, and by hypertensinase found in plasma. The nature of hypertensinase is unknown, but it is probably not an oxidative enzyme. Because it is heat-labile, hypertensinase can be removed from blood and renin preparations by heating hypertensin itself is heat-stable. Lack of pure preparations of hypertensin has delayed its further chemical identification. 

Pancreatic enzymes, preferably trypsin, have been used for the chemical characterisation and identification of many known bioactive peptides. For example, ACE-inhibitory peptides as well as CPPs are most commonly produced by trypsin (Maruyama and Suzuki, 1982 Berrocal et al., 1989). On the other hand, other enzymes and different enzyme combinations of proteinases, including alcalase, chymotrypsin, pancreatin and pepsin, as well as enzymes from bacterial and fungal sources have also been utilised to generate bioactive peptides. Higher yields of CPPs and, particularly, higher amounts of asl-casein f(59-79) in the hydrolysate have been obtained with casein micelles successively digested with pepsin and trypsin... 

Crews et al. [81] studied cooked cod by means of a two-step in vitro gastrointestinal enzymolysis. For the first step of sample preparation they employed gastric juice (1 percent m/v pepsin, pH = 2.0, in 0.15 mol l-1 NaCl) at 37°C for 4 h. Afterwards a pancreatin-based mixture was added to the sample solution containing 1.5 percent m/v pancreatin, 0.5 percent m/v amylase, and 0.15 percent m/v bile salts in 0.15 mol l-1 NaCl at pH = 6.9 for a further 4 h at 37°C. The relatively short (8 h) enzymatic activity and the lack of enzymes capable of hydrolyzing proteins directly into amino acids resulted in the identification of inorganic Se (IV) only, as no selenoamino acids could be detected. 

H16. Herriott, R. M., Kinetics of the formation of pepsin from swine pepsinogen and identification of an intermediate compound. ] Gen. Physiol. 22, 65-78 (1938). 

Since epoxides potentially will react with a variety of amino acids, many products may be formed if they are incorporated into affinity labels. However at present affinity labels containing epoxides have been shown to modify either glutamate or aspartate residues in pepsin, lysozyme, those phosphate isomerase and j -glucosidase. The only other residue which has as yet been modified by epoxides is methionine 192 of chymotrypsin. In general, the other possible products should be similar in stability to derivatives formed by haloketones. Therefore the methods for identification of the amino acid derivatives formed by reaction with epoxides closely parallel those described in connection with haloketones ( 5.3.2). 

Bunn (4), and we inherited the problem on Dr. Bunn s retirement in 1972. We have reported a low resolution electron density map (5) which showed the enzyme to be bilobal with a well-defined and extensive cleft. We now report a medium (3 A) resolution electron density map which defines the general topography and allows a tentative identification of active site residues assuming the enzyme homologous with pepsin. 

The presence of anhydride intermediates during the course of the hydrolysis of sulfite esters catalyzed by pepsin was proposed by May and Kaiser (14). Studies of the catalysis of sulfite ester hydrolysis by model carboxylate species indicated that the presence of anhydride intermediates could be detected in such reactions by the use of nucleophilic trapping reagents (17). Based on the results of the model studies, we were encouraged to attempt to trap the hypothetical anhydride intermediates formed in the pepsin-catalyzed hydrolysis of a sulfite ester using hydroxylamine as the trapping agent, which could lead to the identification of the active sites involved in this reaction. 

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