Serine, cysteine precursor

Phosphogly cerate Is the Precursor of Serine. Cysteine, and Glycine... 

The Ras proteins are synthesized as biologically inactive, cytosolic precursor proteins. They are then modified by several post-translational processing steps at the carboxyl terminal end and thereby converted into biologically active proteins localized at the plasma membrane. The cysteine of the C-terminal CAAX sequence (C is cysteine, A is generally an aliphatic amino acid, and X is methionine, serine, alanine, or glutamine) is first enzymatically S-farnesylated the AAX part is then cleaved off by a specific protease, and the free C-terminal cysteine is finally converted into a methyl ester (Scheme 1). 

The precursor for the class III lantibiotic SapB contains a 21-amino-acid leader peptide. Two ABC-transporters RamA and RamB, consisting of 636 and 608 amino acids, respectively, are encoded by the SapB gene cluster. RamA and RamB share 31 % sequence identity however, neither contains a serine protease or cysteine protease domain. Since no other candidate proteases are present in the gene cluster, the identity of the protease that removes the leader peptide remains elusive. 

In contrast to the syntheses described above, which all start from cystine derivatives to form lanthionine, the lanthionine syntheses in this section all start from a protected cysteine as the nucleophilic precursor, which is then allowed to react with any of a variety of different substrates. These subsequent reactions are the Michael addition with dehydroalanine, the nucleophilic substitution of halo amino acids, or the ring-opening reaction of serine p-lactones and aziridines, respectively. However, it must be emphasized that the Michael... 

The carbon skeletons of six amino acids are converted in whole or in part to pyruvate. The pyruvate can then be converted to either acetyl-CoA (a ketone body precursor) or oxaloacetate (a precursor for gluconeogenesis). Thus amino acids catabolized to pyruvate are both ke-togenic and glucogenic. The six are alanine, tryptophan, cysteine, serine, glycine, and threonine (Fig. 18-19). Alanine yields pyruvate directly on transamination with... 

Several peptidic aldehydes have been reported to be inhibitors for either y-secretase or yS-secretase or both. Common to both series are lipophilic di- and tripeptides with bulky N-terminal protection, e.g. Z-LLL-CHO (MG132), Z-YIL-CHO, and Boc-GW-CHO. The general lack of specificity of these aldehydes and their simultaneous inhibition of serine and cysteine proteases makes interpretation of data rather cumbersome. Indirect mechanisms through general protease inhibition result in complex concentration activity observations. Z-LLL-CHO (MG132), in fact, blocks maturation of the amyloid precursor protein. Some of these drawbacks were avoided by difluoro ketones as pioneered by Merryl Dow (Scheme 3.5.6), which... 

Proteases are essential for the conversion of inactive proprotein precursors into the active neuropeptides. Two main protease pathways have been elucidated for processing proneuropeptides and hormones the recently discovered cysteine protease cathepsin L with aminopeptidase B and the well-established subtilisin-like serine proteases that consist of prohormone con-vertases 1 and 2 followed by carboxypeptidase E/H. Endogenous regulators modulate these two protease pathways as endogenous peptide inhibitors, activators, and in vivo secretory vesicle proteins. Neuropeptides in CSE (cerebrospinal fluid) in neurological diseases can monitor brain nervous activity because neuropeptides represent active neurotransmission (93, 94). 

Serine is the precursor of glycine and cysteine. In the formation of glycine, the side-chain methylene group of serine is transferred to tetrahydrofolate, a carrier of one-carbon units that will be discussed shortly. 

In addition to being a precursor of methionine in the activated methyl cycle, homocysteine is an intermediate in the synthesis of cysteine. Serine and homocysteine condense to form cystathionine. This reaction is catalyzed hy cystathionine -synthase. Cystathionine is then deaminated and cleaved to cysteine and a-ketohutyrate hy cystathioninase. Both of these enzymes utilize PLP and are homologous to aspartate aminotransferase. The net reaction is... 

Serine, glycine, and cysteine are dispensable (or nonessential) amino acids because they can be biosynthesized from precursors that are readily available in the body Serine can be made from or converted back to glucose, and also is used in the synthesis of cysteine. The pathways for these conversions are detailed in Chapter 8. 

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