Phenylalanine and

As constituents of proteins the amino-acids are important constituents of the food of animals. Certain amino-acids can be made in the body from ammonia and non-nitrogenous sources others can be made from other amino-acids, e.g. tyrosine from phenylalanine and cystine from methionine, but many are essential ingredients of the diet. The list of essential amino-acids depends partly on the species. See also peptides and proteins. 

Figure 2-32. Structure diagrams of a) phenylalanine and b) 1-isopropyladamantane c), d) different representations of 1 f ,4S,4aS,6fi,SaS-octahydro-4,8a,9,9-tetraiTiethyl-l, 6-methano-iiaphthalen-1 (2H -ol.

D, J Sturzebecher and WBode 1991. Geometry of Binding of the N-Alpha-Tosylated Piperidides of weffl-Amidino-Phenylalanine, Para Amidino-Phenylalanine and para-Guanidino-Phenylalanine to Thrombin and Trypsin - X-ray Crystal Structures of Their Trypsin Complexes and Modeling of their Thrombin Complexes. FEBS Letters 287 133-138. 

With phenylalanine and tyrosine, the sodium salt of the derivative is sparingly soluble in water and separates during the initial reaction. Acidify the suspension to Congo red the salts pass into solution and the mixture separates into two layers. The derivative is in the etheresil lay and crystallises from it within a few minutes. It is filtered off and recrystaUised. 

Phenylalanine and tryptophan have side chains that incorporate aromatic rings which are large and hydrophobic The aromatic portion of tryptophan is bicyclic which makes it larger than phenylalanine Tryptophan also has a more electron rich aromatic ring and is more polarizable than phenylalanine Its role is more specialized and it is less abundant m proteins than most of the other ammo acids... 

Digestion of the tetrapeptide of Problem 27 13 with chy motrypsin gave a dipeptide that on ammo acid analysis gave phenylalanine and valine in equimolar amounts What ammo acid sequences are possible for the tetrapeptide ... 

Starting with phenylalanine and glycine outline the steps in... 

Protect glycine as its Boc derivative and anchor this to the solid support Remove the pro tecting group and treat with Boc protected phenylalanine and DCCI Remove the Boc group with HCl then treat with HBr in tnfluoroacetic acid to cleave Phe Gly from the solid support... 

Phenylalanine- and Tyrosine-Derived Alkaloids. Carbohydrate metaboHsm leads via a seven-carbon sugar, ie, a heptulose, derivative to shikimic acid [138-59-0] (57), C H qO, which leads in turn to prephenic acid [126-49-8] (58), (43). 

This is the branch-poiat differentiatiag phenylalanine (25, R = H) from tyrosiae (25, R = OH). Both phenylalanine and tyrosiae contain an aryl ring, a three-carbon side chain (a Cg—Cg fragment), and a nitrogen. Decarboxylation yields a two-carbon side chain (a Cg—Cg fragment), eg, 2-phenethylamine (59, R = H) from phenylalanine and tyramine (59, R = OH) from tyrosiae, although it is not certain that ia all cases decarboxylation must precede use ia alkaloid constmction. 

In the case of hyperphenylalaninaemia, which occurs ia phenylketonuria because of a congenital absence of phenylalanine hydroxylase, the observed phenylalanine inhibition of proteia synthesis may result from competition between T.-phenylalanine and L-methionine for methionyl-/RNA. Patients sufferiag from maple symp urine disease, an inborn lack of branched chain oxo acid decarboxylase, are mentally retarded unless the condition is treated early enough. It is possible that the high level of branched-chain amino acids inhibits uptake of L-tryptophan and L-tyrosiae iato the brain. Brain iajury of mice within ten days after thek bkth was reported as a result of hypodermic kijections of monosodium glutamate (MSG) (0.5—4 g/kg). However, the FDA concluded that MSG is a safe kigredient, because mice are bom with underdeveloped brains regardless of MSG kijections (106). 

Aspartame (L-aspartyl-L-phenylalanine methyl ester [22839-47-0]) is about 200 times sweeter than sucrose. The Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) has been estabUshed by JECFA as 40 mg/kg/day. Stmcture-taste relationship of peptides has been reviewed (223). Demand for L-phenylalanine and L-aspartic acid as the raw materials for the synthesis of aspartame has been increasing, d-Alanine is one component of a sweetener "Ahtame" (224). 

Fig. 2. Decomposition of aspartame to diketopipera2ine and/or aspartyl-phenylalanine and then to the amino acids aspartic acid and phenylalanine (22).

Aspartame (1) is the primary nonnutritive sweetener used in carbonated soft drinks. It is approximately 200 times sweeter than sucrose. Aspartame is the methyl ester of a dipeptide of T.-phenylalanine and L-aspartic acid. 

Analytical applications of pyrazolones have been reviewed by Busev et al. (65RCR237). Organic bases are easily characterized by formation of highly crystalline salts with picrolonic acid (l-(4-nitrophenyl-3-methyl-4-nitro-5-hydroxypyrazole). The last-named compound is used as a reagent for alkaloids, tryptophan, phenylalanine and for the detection and estimation of calcium (B-76MI40404). 

To direct the synthesis so that only Phe-Gly is formed, the amino group of phenylalanine and the car boxyl group of glycine must be protected so that they cannot react under the conditions of peptide bond formation. We can represent the peptide bond formation step by the following equation, where X and Y are amine- and carboxyl-protecting groups, respectively ... 

The nonpolar amino acids (Figure 4.3a) include all those with alkyl chain R groups (alanine, valine, leucine, and isoleucine), as well as proline (with its unusual cyclic structure), methionine (one of the two sulfur-containing amino acids), and two aromatic amino acids, phenylalanine and tryptophan. Tryptophan is sometimes considered a borderline member of this group because it can interact favorably with water via the N-H moiety of the indole ring. Proline, strictly speaking, is not an amino acid but rather an a-imino acid. 

For the separation of amino acids, the applicability of this principle has been explored. For the separation of racemic phenylalanine, an amphiphilic amino acid derivative, 1-5-cholesteryl glutamate (14) has been used as a chiral co-surfactant in micelles of the nonionic surfactant Serdox NNP 10. Copper(II) ions are added for the formation of ternary complexes between phenylalanine and the amino acid cosurfactant. The basis for the separation is the difference in stability between the ternary complexes formed with d- or 1-phenylalanine, respectively. The basic principle of this process is shown in Fig. 5-17 [72]. 

Enantiomer separation factors (a values) for valine and phenylalanine as well as their esters of 5-10 for phenylalanine and 4-10 for valine have been shown at the 0.1-1 g ChiraLig scale. These a values vary as a function of solvent and other loading matrix factors (pH, salts, etc.). However, all of these cases show a values high enough to obtain reasonable enantiometric purity in less than or equal to three stages. The system with a value of = 6 for the valine methyl ester enantiomers has the ability to load the valine onto the resin in H,0 containing LiClO and also to... 

On complete hydrolysis, a polypeptide gives two alanine, one leucine, one methionine, one phenylalanine, and one valine residue. Partial hydrolysis gives the following fragments Ala-Phe, Leu-Met, Val-Ala, Phe-Leu. It is known that the first amino acid in the sequence is valine and the last one is methionine. What is the complete sequence of amino acids ... 

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