Serine peptide synthesis

The phenolic hydroxyl group of tyrosine, the imidazole moiety of histidine, and the amide groups of asparagine and glutamine are often not protected in peptide synthesis, since it is usually unnecessary. The protection of the hydroxyl group in serine and threonine (O-acetylation or O-benzylation) is not needed in the azide condensation procedure but may become important when other activation methods are used. 

This active ester was used for carboxyl protection of Fmoc-serine and Fmoc-threonine during glycosylation. The esters are then used as active esters in peptide synthesis. 

It is interesting to note that serine peptidases can, under special conditions in vitro, catalyze the reverse reaction, namely the formation of a peptide bond (Fig. 3.4). The overall mechanism of peptide-bond synthesis by peptidases is represented by the reverse sequence f-a in Fig. 3.3. The nucleophilic amino group of an amino acid residue competes with H20 and reacts with the acyl-enzyme intermediate to form a new peptide bond (Steps d-c in Fig. 3.3). This mechanism is not relevant to the in vivo biosynthesis of proteins but has proved useful for preparative peptide synthesis in vitro [17]. An interesting application of the peptidase-catalyzed peptide synthesis is the enzymatic conversion of porcine insulin to human insulin [18][19]. 

Cysteine endopeptidases, like serine endopeptidases, can also catalyze peptide synthesis under preparative conditions [66-68]. Thus, papain has been used to synthesize enkephalins and angiotensin. 

The acylated peptides (Myr)GCX-Bimane 31 a-e (X = G, L, R, T, V), which are found in certain nonreceptor tyrosine kinases and ct-subunits of several heterotrimeric G-proteins, were synthesized in solution using common solution-phase peptide synthesis with X-myristoylglycine as a building block. These model peptides were used for acylation studies with palmitoyl-CoA in phospholipid vesicles at physiological pH. For such uncatalyzed spontaneous reactions only a modest molar excess of acyl donor species (2.5 1) was necessary. Unprotected side chains of threonine or serine are not interfering with this S-acylation (Scheme 14). 

As discussed above, proteases are peptide bond hydrolases and act as catalysts in this reaction. Consequently, as catalysts they also have the potential to catalyze the reverse reaction, the formation of a peptide bond. Peptide synthesis with proteases can occur via one of two routes either in an equilibrium controlled or a kinetically controlled manner 60). In the kinetically controlled process, the enzyme acts as a transferase. The protease catalyzes the transfer of an acyl group to a nucleophile. This requires an activated substrate preferably in the form of an ester and a protected P carboxyl group. This process occurs through an acyl covalent intermediate. Hence, for kineticmly controlled reactions the eii me must go through an acyl intermediate in its mechanism and thus only serine and cysteine proteases are of use. In equilibrium controlled synthesis, the enzyme serves omy to expedite the rate at which the equilibrium is reached, however, the position of the equilibrium is unaffected by the protease. 

Due to the vast numbers and rapidity of novel developments in solid-phase synthesis over the past ten years, a number of reports currently found in the literature deal with solid-phase syntheses of lanthionine peptides. There are at least two different approaches to synthesize lanthionine peptides in which the sulfide bond links amino acid halves that are not direct neighbors within the peptide chain (Scheme 10). One obvious approach, method A, is based on the coupling of a preformed, orthogonally protected lanthionine monomer to the N-terminus of a peptide oxime resin. 48 This is then followed by acid-catalyzed cyclization and simultaneous release from the resin during amide bond formation with the C-terminal carboxy group via the peptide cyclization method on oxime resin (see Section 6.73.2.2). The alternative approach is lanthionine formation after peptide synthesis from amino acid derivatives, such as serine and cysteine (method B). 

For the synthesis of selenocysteine derivatives that are suitable for peptide synthesis essentially two approaches have been used to date (1) conversion of p-chloroalanine 23 or serine-O-tosylate derivatives 24 into the desired selenocysteine derivatives by a nucleophilic displacement reaction with an areneselenol and (2) full reduction of selenocystine and in situ reaction with aryl halides to produce the aryl selenides. 7 25 In this context, reduction of selenocystine in 2 M NaOH with 2-methyl-2-propanethiol for concomitant formation of the mixed selenide/sulfide derivative 5e-(tert-butylsulfanyl)selenocysteine in analogy to the formation of 5-(fett-butylsulfanyl)cysteine 26 fails as a consequence of the difficult reduction of the diselenide with monothiols. 27 ... 

The optimum yield of a condensation product is obtained at the pH where Ka has a maximum. For peptide synthesis with serine proteases this coincides with the pH where the enzyme kinetic properties have their maxima. For the synthesis of penicillins with penicillin amidase, or esters with serine proteases or esterases, the pH of maximum product yield is much lower than the pH optimum of the enzymes. For penicillin amidase the pH stability is also markedly reduced at pH 4-5. Thus, in these cases, thermodynamically controlled processes for the synthesis of the condensation products are not favorable. When these enzymes are used as catalysts in thermodynamically controlled hydrolysis reactions an increase in pH increases the product yield. Penicilhn hydrolysis is generally carried out at pH about 8.0, where the enzyme has its optimum. At this pH the equiUbrium yield of hydrolysis product is about 97%. It could be further increased by increasing the pH. Due to the limited stability of the enzyme and the product 6-aminopenicillanic acid at pH>8, a higher pH is not used in the biotechnological process. 

Hollosi, M., Kollat, E., Laczko, I., Medzihradsky, K., Thurin, J., and Otvos, L.J. (1991) Solid-phase synthesis of glycopeptides glycosylation of resin-bound serine-peptides by 3,4,6-tri-O-acetyl-D-glucose-oxazoline. Tetrahedron Lett. 32, 1531-1534. 

In peptide synthesis functional groups in the amino acid side chains are often protected with acid-labile protecting groups (Section 4.5.3). The tripeptide in Figure 4.35 contains, for example, a serine ferf-butyl ether and an L-lysine e-protected as an O-tert-butyl carbamate. In the standard strategy of synthesizing oligopeptides from the C- to the N-terminus (cf. Section 6.4.3) the C-terminus is either connected to the acid-labile... 

The constmction of synthetic selenocysteine-containing proteins or selenium-containing proteins attracts considerable interest at present, mainly for the reason that it can be used to solve the phase problem in X-ray crystallography. Selenomethionine incorporation has been used mostly uutil now for this purpose. There are also two reports ou uew synthetic selenocysteine-containing proteins. In one case, the active site serine of subtUisin has been converted into a selenocysteine residue by chemical means, with the result that the enzyme gains a predominant esterase instead of protease activity. In the second case, automated peptide synthesis was carried out to produce a peptide in which all seven-cysteine residues of the Neurospora crassa metallothioueiu (Cu) were replaced by selenocysteine. The replacement resulted iu au alteration of both the stoichiometry and the affinity of copper binding. ... 

Under the conditions used in peptide synthesis, unprotected aliphatic hydroxy groups can undergo two types of side reactions they can be acylated or dehydrated, the latter leading to dehydroamino acids. The hydroxy group of serine is a primary alcoholic function and therefore exhibits the highest reactivity. The secondary alcoholic functions of threonine, hydroxyproline, (3-phenylserine, hydroxynorvaline, and hydroxynorleucine, as well as of other noncoded amino acids, are less reactive and thus more suited for use in the unprotected form. The aromatic hydroxy group of tyrosine is more acidic than the ahphatic hydroxy groups nevertheless, it can be acylated to form esters. These are active esters which in turn can react with primary amines to form amide bonds. 

The tert-butyl ethers of serine and threonine are available by tert-butylation of various starting materials, e.g. Z-Ser-OMe/Z-Thr-OMe,P l Z-Ser-ONbz/Z-Thr-ONbz,P l and H-Ser-OMe TosOH/H-Thr-OMe -TosOHt l (see also Table 3). Analogous to benzyl ether formation, the tert-butyl ethers can also be produced via 4-substituted 2,2-difluoro-l,3,2-ox-azaborolidin-5-ones.t In most cases, isobutylene with 4-toluenesulfonic add, or a concentrated inorganic acid is used as catalyst for tert-butylation. The use of Fmoc-Ser(tBu)-OH and Fmoc-Thr(tBu)-OH in solid-phase peptide synthesis is very well established. These annino acid derivatives can be synthesized either by introduction of the Fmoc group into H-Ser(tBu)-OH and H-Thr(tBu)-OH or by tert-butylation of the Fmoc-protected serine and threonine (Table 3). ... 

The trimethylsilyl group was the first to be developed and is widely used for the protection of serine and threonine (Table 6). Chlorotrimethylsilane, l,14 3,3,3-hexamethyldisilazane, and A(0-bis(trimethylsilyl)acetamide are commercially available reagents used for the conversion of alcohols into the corresponding trimethylsilyl derivatives.Furthermore, trimethylsilyl cyanide has been used to protect the side chains of serine, threonine, and ty-rosine.f This silyl protection allows the formation of A -carboxyanhydrides from H-Ser(TMS)-OH and H-Thr(TMS)-OH, and their application in peptide synthesis in the aqueous phase.f l The TMS group can be removed under various conditions, depending on the kind of functional group to which it is bound the TMS ethers are more stable than related amino or carboxy derivatives.These differences in stability allow the direct application of completely silylated hydroxy amino acids in peptide synthesis.b ... 

A step-by-step peptide synthesis from the N- to the C-terminus is not possible with chemical methods as it risks partial epimerization due to the repeated carboxy activation procedures, In constrast, the stereo- and regiospecificity of serine and cysteine proteases ensures integrity of the stereogenic center and allows ecological reaction conditions without side-chain protection. Scheme 4 shows the synthesis scheme using clostripain and chymo-trypsin as catalysts.The second coupling reaction was carried out by enzyme catalysis in a frozen aqueous system (see Section 4.2.3.1). 

---