Peptides, bonds insulin

Enzymes are highly specific catalysts in biological systems. They are proteins that consist of many amino acids coupled to each other by peptide bonds. The rather small enzyme insulin, for example, consists of 51 amino acids. The chain of amino... 

The amino group of the N-terminal amino acid residue of a peptide will react with the FDNB reagent to form the characteristic yellow DNP derivative, which may be released from the peptide by either acid or enzymic hydrolysis of the peptide bond and subsequently identified. This is of historic interest because Dr F. Sanger first used this reaction in his work on the determination of the primary structure of the polypeptide hormone insulin and the reagent is often referred to as Sanger s reagent. 

Identification of carboxy-terminal amino acids was also attempted. Studies by Bergmann and his associates in the 1930s (see below) had characterized various peptidases with differing specificities. One of these was carboxypeptidase which required a free carboxy terminus adjacent to the peptide bond to be hydrolyzed. The specificity of the enzyme was limited but Lens in 1949 reported alanine to be at one end of insulin. Fromageot and his colleagues (1950) and Chibnall and Rees (1951) reduced the carboxy termini to B-aminoalcohols and showed glycine as well as alanine to be carboxy-terminal. Hydrazinolysis was also attempted the dry protein was treated with hydrazine at 100 °C for 6 h so that the carboxy-terminal amino acid was released as the free... 

It is interesting to note that serine peptidases can, under special conditions in vitro, catalyze the reverse reaction, namely the formation of a peptide bond (Fig. 3.4). The overall mechanism of peptide-bond synthesis by peptidases is represented by the reverse sequence f-a in Fig. 3.3. The nucleophilic amino group of an amino acid residue competes with H20 and reacts with the acyl-enzyme intermediate to form a new peptide bond (Steps d-c in Fig. 3.3). This mechanism is not relevant to the in vivo biosynthesis of proteins but has proved useful for preparative peptide synthesis in vitro [17]. An interesting application of the peptidase-catalyzed peptide synthesis is the enzymatic conversion of porcine insulin to human insulin [18][19]. 

Use of Proteases in Peptide Synthesis. Typically peptides are synthesized the standard solid or liquid phase methodologies (56, 57). However, both of these techniques require harsh chemical reactions which are detrimental to certain amino acids. Furthermore, in practical terms most peptide syntheses are limited to the range of 30 to 50 amino acid residues. Hence, peptide synthesis is still somewhat problematic in many cases. In certain situations, the alternative method of peptide synthesis using proteases is an attractive choice. With this form of synthesis, one can avoid the use of the noxious and hazardous chemicals used in solid or liquid phase peptide synthesis. Since the reactions are enzyme catalyzed, racemization of the peptide bond does not occur. This technique has been used with success in the synthesis and semisynthesis of several important peptides including human insulin (55,59). 

This lysosomal endopeptidase [EC 3.4.23.5] is similar to pepsin A, except that the specificity is narrower and will not hydrolyze the Gln" —His peptide bond in the B chain of insulin. The enzyme is a member of the peptidase family Al. 

The porcine insulin is first subjected to digestion with chymotrypsin-free trypsin at pH 7.5 for in excess of 45 min. This results in the selective cleavage of the peptide bond linking arginine 22... 

The first pyrolysin to be cloned from a higher plant was cucumisin from Cucumis melo, an extracellular protease highly abundant in melon fruit [152], Cucumisin was shown to have a broad substrate specificity in that it cleaves a variety of small peptide substrates and eight peptide bonds within the oxidized insulin B chain [153-155]. A similar, broad... 

Unlike polysaccharides, proteins do not have branched chains, but several chains may be linked together via disulphide bridges rather than peptide bonds. The primary structure of ox insulin is shown in Fig. S.A2. The protein consists of two peptide chains which are linked via the formation of the disulphide bridges. Disulphide bridges are formed by the condensation of the thiol groups of two cysteine residues. 

Much uncertainty reigned over the nature of proteins, the best known of which were hemoglobin, the digestive enzymes, and later, insulin. Properties of individual amino acids and the peptide bond were studied early in this century, but it was not until urease was crystallized by Sumner1 in 1926, followed by the isolation of other pure enzymes, that it was finally accepted in the 1930s that enzymes were proteins and that their catalytic properties were not the function of some adsorbed low molecular weight entity. Somewhat later, towards the end of the 1930s, coenzymes were isolated and their roles established. 

In native proteins of known three-dimensional structure about 7% of all prolyl peptide bonds are cis (Stewart et al., 1990 MacArthur and Thornton, 1991). Usually, the conformational state of each peptide bond is clearly defined. It is either cis or trans in every molecule, depending on the structural framework imposed by the folded protein chain. There are a few exceptions to this rule. In the native states of staphylococcal nuclease (Evans et al., 1987), insulin (Higgins et al., 1988), and calbindin (Chazin et al., 1989) cis-trans equilibria at particular Xaa-Pro bonds have been detected in solution by NMR. In staphylococcal nuclease, the cis conformer of the Lys 116-Pro 117 bond can be selectively stabilized by bind-... 

It has already been remarked that most enzymes with elastolytic activity have proved to be proteinases with a wide peptide-bond specificity. Thus papain, bromelin, and ficin have a similarly broad hydrolytic action and are all active elastolytic enzymes. Sanger et al. (1955) found that the oxidized A chain of insulin was hydrolyzed in a variety of positions by either crude papain or activated mercuripapain. There were five major... 

Hutchens et al. (1969) determined the heat capacities of zinc insulin at 0 and 0.04 h and of chymotrypsinogen A at 0 and 0.107 h, from 10 to 310 K. For all samples the data were a smooth function of temperature, with no indication of a glass or phase transition at any temperature. The absence of a phase transition corresponding to the ice-liquid water transition is expected for low hydrations. These appear to be the only data in the literature that have been used to determine the entropy of a protein sample. Hutchens et al. (1969) calculated the standard entropy of formation of a peptide bond as 9.0—9.3 cal K mol" . 

In an attempt to find out more about the nature of the secondary binding site in penicillopepsin. Mains et al. (76) analysed the nature of the amino acid side chains at positions removed from the sensitive peptide bond. An abbreviated summary of the results is given in Table VII. The number of hydrophobic and hydrophilic side chains respectively are listed for four amino acids on either side of every peptide bond broken in the B-chain of insulin and in glucagon. The positions are numbered Pi, P2, P/, P2 etc. as defined by Berger and Schechter (103). The choice of four positions was taken from the Frutons work (73) on the specificity of pepsin and the eflFect of chain length on catalytic efficiency. The largest eflFects were observed with substrates having three to four... 

In a given protein inaccessibility of tryptophan units to NBS may not necessarily mean stability to enzymatic cleavage. In TMV-protein, for instance, all three tryptophan peptide bonds are cleaved by the action of chymotrypsin. This means that the approach of a chemical cleaving agent and of an enzjnne is affected by the same enviromental factors to a different degree. Exclusive iodination of the A chain of insulin is a related example of an unreactive tyrosine residue in the B chain (Springell, 1961). 

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