Protein methylation derivatives

Another way in which to gain structural information concerning the N-terminal residue of glycophorins A" and A is to study the N-terminal, mono[ C]methyl derivatives these are produced by using limited amounts of [ C]formaldehyde. There are distinct differences between the N, N -di[ C]methylamino and N -mono[ C]methylamino species (i) a significant, chemical-shift difference exists between the N-terminal dimethyl and monomethyl species (43 and 34 p.p.m.) (li) all of the C resonances of the N-terminal dimethyl species move upheld as the pH is increased (if they move at all), whereas all of the C resonances of the N-terminal, monomethyl species move downfield as the pH is increased and (in) A for the N-terminal monomethyl species tends to be much larger than that for the N-terminal dimethyl species. Point (in) would tend to indicate that it may be more advantageous to study the N-terminal monomethyl species. However, because of allowable protein concentrations, detection limits on available instruments, and technical difficulties, it has thus far... 

N-methyl derivatives on protein kinase C and src kinase activities, Biochem. 28 6796-6800. 

The temperature-sensitive precipitation of unmodified and methylated /3-caseins in the presence of calcium was measured also (see Figure 3). Methylation caused an increase of up to 3°C in the precipitation temperature of calcium /3-caseinate. Results from rennet clotting of an asi-K casein micelle system indicated that replacing native asi-casein with the reductively methylated protein had little influence on clotting time, while replacing K-casein with its reductively methylated derivative re-... 

Some of these compounds have been detected upon thermal decomposition of certain foods, amino acids, and proteins. Significant amounts of compound (13), known as norharman, and its 9-methyl derivative, commonly called harman, have been found in tryptophan pyrolyzates. Similarly, cigarette smoke condensate has been found to contain significant amounts of both of these compounds <82JC331>. 

Molybdopterin itself is also extremely unstable when released from a protein and has never been structurally characterized in its native state (32, 33). Mass spectral and NMR studies of the difcarboxamido-methyl) derivative of the oxidized form of molybdopterin have provided convincing evidence that this derivative is a 6-substituted pterin that possesses structure 3 (34). A 6-substituted pterin moiety now appears to be a common feature of all of the molybdenum enzymes of Table I. There is still some question about the oxidation state of the pterin ring... 

Nitrogens 1 and 3 in the imidazole ring of histidyl residues in proteins may be alkylated with iodoacetic acid (generally in a much slower reaction than alkylation of cysteinyl residues) to give three carboxy-methyl derivatives 1-carboxymethylhistidine, 3-carboxymethyl-histidine and 1,3-dicarboxymethylhistidine ( 3.4). In general, the 3-carboxymethyl derivative is formed most rapidly. These derivatives are stable to acid hydrolysis under the usual conditions (but excess reagent must be removed) and may be analyzed on the long column of most analyzers as described below. 

Conversion of half-cystine residues in proteins and peptides to the S-methyl derivatives is advantageous in subsequent studies of amino acid sequence. Under the usual conditions of acid hydrolysis ( 2.1), S-methylcysteine is recovered in a 90% yield (Heinrikson 1971). The phenylthiohydantoin of S-methylcysteine is readily identified by routine thin layer chromatography procedures (Rochat et al. 1970). With the increasing use of the sequenator, PTH-S-methylcysteine offers a marked advantage over derivatives such as PTH-cysteic acid, or PTFl-carboxymethylcysteine, which have to be identified by special techniques (Edman 1960, 1970). S-methylcysteinyl residues provide a new point of cleavage for cyanogen bromide (5). 

Methionine and Vitamin E. Combinations of methionine and vitamin E have been found to be antagonistic to selenium toxicity. In one study, selenium concentrations in the liver and kidneys of rats fed selenium-containing diets with methionine and vitamin E were less than the concentrations found in the livers and kidneys of rats fed selenium with either methionine or vitamin E alone (Levander and Morris 1970). The results are compatible with the hypothesis that methionine detoxifies selenium by forming methylated derivatives of selenium that are eliminated in the urine and in expired air (see Section 3.4.4) or that methionine and selenomethionine are in the same pool of amino acids and that by increasing the amount of methionine relative to selenomethionine, the probability of selenomethionine being randomly inserted into proteins during synthesis decreases (Stadtman 1977,1980,1983,1987, 1990). As discussed in Section 3.11, methionine administered as an antidote for acute selenium toxicity in rats was ineffective (Lombeck et al. 1987). This result supports a mechanism of action involving protein synthesis rather than a methylation mechanism hypothesis. 

The translational activity of various unsaturated analogs of L-isoleucine was evaluated using an Escherichia coli strain auxotrophic for isoleucine. It was observed that the alkene [2-amino-3-methyl-4-pentenoic acid (2)] and alkyne [2-amino-3-methyl-4-pentynoic acid (3)] derivatives of L-isoleucine can support protein synthesis at levels approximately 50% of that observed in cultures supplemented with isoleucine. However, no incorporation of the ocC or /JC methylated derivatives could be detected. In order to examine the stereoselectivity of incorporation, the (2S, 3S) and (2S, 3R) diastereomers of 2 and 3 were prepared. The extents of isoleucine substitution in vivo were 80% and 70% for (2S, 3S)-2 and (2S, 3S)-3, respectively, under the conditions examined in this study. 

Igarashi, Y., Hakomori, S., Toyokuni, T., Dean, B., Fujita, S., Sugimoto, M., Ogawa, T., el-Ghendy, K., and Racker, E., Effect of chemically well-defined sphingosine and its N-methyl derivatives on protein kinase C and src kinase activities, Biochemistry, 28 (1989) 6796-6800. 

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