Reduction to disulfides

Disulfides. As shown in Figure 4, the and h-chains of insulin are connected by two disulfide bridges and there is an intrachain cycHc disulfide link on the -chain (see Insulin and other antidiabetic drugs). Vasopressin [9034-50-8] and oxytocin [50-56-6] also contain disulfide links (48). Oxidation of thiols to disulfides and reduction of the latter back to thiols are quite common and important in biological systems, eg, cysteine to cystine or reduced Hpoic acid to oxidized Hpoic acid. Many enzymes depend on free SH groups for activation—deactivation reactions. The oxidation—reduction of glutathione (Glu-Cys-Gly) depends on the sulfhydryl group from cysteine. 

The dinuclear ion Mo2(S2) g (F - prepared from the reaction of molybdate and polysulfide solution (13) is a usehil starting material for the preparation of dinuclear sulfur complexes. These disulfide ligands are reactive toward replacement or reduction to give complexes containing the Mo2S " 4 core (Fig. 3f). 

Tetrabutylammonium iodide in trifluoroacetic anhydride is an effective reducing reagent [dS] This system can be used for direct reduction of arenesulfonic acids to the corresponding thiols or disulfides m moderate yields under mild conditions (equation 18) Alkanesulfonic acids are reduced by this system to disulfides with 30-57% yields [dfi]... 

Nitriles from aromatic aldehydes, diammonium hydrogen phosphate, and 1-nitropropane, 43, 59 w-Nitrobenzenesulfonyl chloride, reduction to m-nitrophenyl disulfide by hydriodic acid, 40, 80 2 Nitro-2,3-dimethylbutane, 43, 89... 

Many extracellular proteins like immunoglobulins, protein hormones, serum albumin, pepsin, trypsin, ribonuclease, and others contain one or more indigenous disulfide bonds. For functional and structural studies of proteins, it is often necessary to cleave these disulfide bridges. Disulfide bonds in proteins are commonly reduced with small, soluble mercaptans, such as DTT, TCEP, 2-mercaptoethanol, thioglycolic acid, cysteine, etc. High concentrations of mercaptans (molar excess of 20- to 1,000-fold) are usually required to drive the reduction to completion. 

Ethylenimine may be used to introduce additional sites of tryptic cleavage for protein structural studies. In this case, complete sulfhydryl modification is usually desired. Proteins are treated with ethylenimine under denaturing conditions (6-8 M guanidine hydrochloride) in the presence of a disulfide reductant to reduce any disulfide bonds before modification. Ethylenimine may be added directly to the reducing solution in excess (similar to the procedure for Aminoethyl-8 described previously) to totally modify the —SH groups formed. 

The use of periodate as a cleavage agent does have advantages, however. Unlike the use of cleavable crosslinkers that contain disulfide bonds which require a reductant to break the conjugate, cleavage of diol-containing crosslinks with periodate typically preserves the indigenous disulfide bonds and tertiary structure of proteins and other molecules. As a result, with most proteins bioactivity usually remains unaffected after mild periodate treatment. 

The following protocol for labeling proteins with 5-IAF is adapted from Gorman (1987). It is a bit unusual in that it involves reduction of disulfides with dithiothreitol (DTT) and immediate reaction with 5-IAF in excess without removal of excess reductant. The procedure can be changed to include a gel filtration step after disulfide reduction to remove excess DTT, but in any case, it should be optimized for each protein to be modified. An alternative to the use of DTT to produce sulfhydryls is thiolation with a compound that can generate free thiols upon reaction with a protein (Chapter 1, Section 4.1). 

For complete reduction of all disulfides in the presence of a denaturant, react for 16 hours at 0°C and 2 hours at room temperature. For partial reduction of disulfides, the reaction time may be reduced to 2 hours at 37°C, particularly for antibody thiol reduction, if only partial reduction of thiols in the hinge region is done. 

The hydrazone bond can be reduced to stabilize the linkage by the addition of sodium cyanoborohydride to a final concentration of 50mM. React for 30 minutes at room temperature with mixing. All operations with cyanoborohydride should be done in a fume hood. If the glycoprotein being modified is sensitive to disulfide reduction and potential denaturation, then this step should be avoided. 

Note Some protocols avoid a reduction step, as it can lead to disulfide bond cleavage and detrimental effects on protein activity. As an alternative to reduction, add 50 pi of 0.2 M lysine in 0.5 M sodium carbonate, pH 9.5 to each ml of the conjugation reaction to block excess reactive sites. Block for 2 hours at room temperature. Other amine-containing small molecules may be substituted for lysine—such as glycine, Tris buffer, or ethanolamine. 

Klafki, H. W., Pick, A. I., Pardowitz, I., Cole, T., Awni, L. A., Barnikol, H. U., Mayer, F., Kratzin, H. D., and Hilschmann, N. (1993). Reduction of disulfide bonds in an amyloidogenic Bence Jones protein leads to formation of amyloid-like fibrils in vitro. Biol. Chem. Hoppe Seyfer374, 1117-1122. 

Analogous to the reduction of disulfides, peroxides and hydroperoxides, compounds that are generally toxic are readily reduced back to alcohols by peroxidases however, in the process, other compounds including drugs can be oxidized. 

A later study (45) indicates that cucurbitin from pumpkin has a molecular weight of TT2,000 dal tons that can be electrophoretically separated into subunits of 63,000 and 56,000 dal tons. Reduction of disulfides produces polypeptides of 36,000 and 22,000 dal tons. Globulins from six cucurbits examined chromatographically (46) have molecular weights of 220,000 to 260,000 dal tons that exhibit predominantly 10.4 - 11.2 S values (about 95% of the three globulin fractions). Cucurbitin from Cucumis sativus appears a tetramer of... 

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