Protease esterase activity

Some proteases show an esterase activity, especially in their catalytic activity for regioselective acylation of sugars. By utilizing this property, enzymatic synthesis of polyester containing sugar group in the backbone was demonstrated... 

The i-poly(3HB) depolymerase of R. rubrum is the only i-poly(3HB) depolymerase that has been purified [174]. The enzyme consists of one polypeptide of 30-32 kDa and has a pH and temperature optimum of pH 9 and 55 °C, respectively. A specific activity of 4 mmol released 3-hydroxybutyrate/min x mg protein was determined (at 45 °C). The purified enzyme was inactive with denatured poly(3HB) and had no lipase-, protease-, or esterase activity with p-nitro-phenyl fatty acid esters (2-8 carbon atoms). Native poly(3HO) granules were not hydrolyzed by i-poly(3HB) depolymerase, indicating a high substrate specificity similar to extracellular poly(3HB) depolymerases. Recently, the DNA sequence of the i-poly(3HB) depolymerase of R. eutropha was published (AB07612). Surprisingly, the DNA-deduced amino acid sequence (47.3 kDa) did not contain a lipase box fingerprint. A more detailed investigation of the structure and function of bacterial i-poly(HA) depolymerases will be necessary in future. 

Carbonate anhydrase (carbonic anhydrase, EC 4.2.1.1) catalyzes the reversible interconversion of C02 and HCO3 (see Sect. 3.7.3). The enzyme is found in erythrocytes, and in kidney and gastric juices where it contributes to the control of the acid-base balance. The esterase activity of carbonic anhydrase is probably due to the similarity between its active site and that of the zinc proteases. A possible physiological role of the esterase activity of this enzyme remains to be established. 

In one case, a small peptide with enzyme-like capability has been claimed. On the basis of model building and conformation studies, the peptide Glu-Phe-Ala-Ala-Glu-Glu-Phe-Ala-Ser-Phe was synthesized in the hope that the carboxyl groups in the center of the model would act like the carboxyl groups in lysozyme 17). The kinetic data in this article come from assays of cell wall lysis of M. lysodeikticus, chitin hydrolysis, and dextran hydrolysis. All of these assays are turbidimetric. Although details of the assay procedures were not given, the final equilibrium positions are apparently different for the reaction catalyzed by lysozyme and the reaction catalyzed by the decapeptide. Similar peptide models for proteases were made on the basis of empirical rules for predicting polypeptide conformations. These materials had no amidase activity and esterase activity only slightly better than that of histidine 59, 60). 

Other Food Industries. Aspartame is a synthetic dipeptide ester, L-asp-L-phe-OMe which is about 200 times as sweet as sucrose. It has recently been released for sale in North America and Europe by G. D. Searle. It was originally synthesized chemically and reported by Mazur et al. 38). Subsequent improved methods of synthesis have been developed which involve the use of metalloproteases such as thermolysin in reverse . Metalloproteases are used because, unlike the more common proteases, they have no esterase activity. 

Recently, a small molecule fluorophore phosphosensor technology referred as Pro-Q Diamond dye has been developed to detect and quantitate phosphorylated amino acids within peptides and proteins in microarrays. ° In addition to binding assays, fluorescence detection methods have also been developed for functional assays. For example, microarrays of quenched fluorescent substrates can be used to detect protease or esterase activities in the analytes. In this method, quenched fluorescent substrates are prepared by coupling the peptide substrate to coumarin, a fluorescent dye. These peptide substrates are then spotted onto the solid support... 

Enzyme-catalyzed hydrolysis, exploiting the esterase activity of proteases such as trypsin and chymotrypsint ° l or carboxypeptidase has opened alternative routes to the deprotection of several peptide methyl, ethyl, and ferf-butyl esters. In fact, methyl, ethyl, and benzyl esters are successfully hydrolyzed from protected peptides using the alkaline protease from Bacillus subtilis or alcalase from Bacillus licheniformis which accepts... 

The exploitation of the esterase activities of chymotrypsin and trypsin opened routes to the hydrolysis of several peptide methyl and ethyl esters at pH 6.4-8 and room temperature. The transformation is not only successful with peptides carrying the respective enzyme-specific amino acids at the C-terminus, but in several examples different amino acids are tolerated at this position. However, a severe drawback of this approach is that numerous peptides are poor substrates or not accepted at all. Moreover, a competitive cleavage of the peptide bond occurs if the peptides contain trypsin- or chymotrypsin-labUe sequences. Therefore, these proteases are not generally useful for a safe C-terminal deprotection. 

Fig. 11. Electrophoretic distribution in agar of gastric mucosal extract protein (A) protease activity at pH 2.2 (B) carboxylic esterase activity (C) and immuno-electrophoretic pattern (D). The relative mobility is shown at the bottom (UR) with 0 representing the location of the uncharged dextran, levan and 1 the migration of human serum albumin. The zones of mobility (Z), arbitrarily defined on the basis of protein distribution, are indicated at the top. Each antigen and enzyme is designated by the zone in which it is found. The antigens are alsc designated by a letter. From Kushner et al. (K32).

The second problem is caused by possible decomposition of the other ingredients under effect of TAS. For example, papain has both protease and esterase activity and therefore it can decompose ingredients containing peptide and ester links, for example, surfactants, emollients, thickeners, etc. The third problem is that the solutions of enzymes and other TAS cannot provide a slow-release effect in liquid remedies. 

Receptor preparations often contain enzymes (proteases, esterases, etc.) that degrade compotmds of interest. Assays designed to detect peptides or esters should include peptidase or esterase inhibitors and bovine serum albumin to minimize enzyme activity. Whenever enzyme inhibitors are added to assays, the effect of these additions on the characteristics of the assay must be determined to ensure that these additions do not inhibit (or enhance) ligand binding. Where interference is encountered, this is controlled by the addition of the interfering substance to all control incubations as well as in generating the reference curve. 

The protease/esterase inhibitor diisopropyl phosphofluoridate (LFP) was shown to block the cleavage of poliovirus polyprotein (7) This implicates a protease with a serine-containing active site. 

Figure 2.3 Serine protease and hydrolase ABPs. (A) Reaction of a general serine hydrolase probe containing a fluorophosphonate (FP) reactive electrophile. This class of probes has been used extensively to label various classes of serine hydrolases including proteases, esterases, lipases and others. (B) The peptide diphenyl phosphonate (DPP) reacts with the serine nucleophile in the active site of serine proteases. This probe is much less reactive than the FP class of probes but is more selective towards serine proteases over other types of serine hydrolases.(C) The natural product epoxomicin contains a keto-epoxide that selectively reacts with the catalytic N-terminal threonine of the proteasome P-subunit. This reaction results in the formation of a stable six-membered ring. This class of electrophile has been used in probes of the proteasome.

Certain azlactones, such as oxazoUn-5-ones, represent derivatives of activated esters and thus can be hydrolyzed by proteases, esterases, and lipases (Scheme 2.57) [399]. The products obtained are Af-acyl a-amino acids. When proteases are employed, only products of modest optical purity were obtained due to the fact that the enzymatic reaction rate is in the same order of magnitude as the spontaneous ring opening in the aqueous medium (itspont iIr or its)-... 

Hydrolytic enzymes such as proteases, esterases and lipases are ready-to-use catalysts for the preparation of optically active carboxylic acids, amino acids, alcohols, and amines. The area is sufficiently well researched to be of general applicabihty for a wide range of synthetic problems. Consequently, about two thirds of the reported research on biotransformations involves these areas. This is facilitated by the fact that a considerable collection of commercially available proteases and lipases is available in conjunction with techniques for the improvement of their selectivities. The development of simple models aimed at the prediction of the stereochemical outcome of a given reaction is still a challenge and will be the subject of future studies. A search for novel esterases to enrich the limited number of available enzymes and for lipases showing anti-Kazlauskas stereospecificities would be a worthwhile endeavor. 

---