Serine proteases products

James, M.N.G., et al. Structures of product and inhibitor complexes of Streptomyces griseus protease A at 1.8 A resolution. A model for serine protease catalysis. 

The quantification of kinins in human tissues or body fluids has been limited due to the inherent difficulties in accurately measuring the concentration of ephemeral peptides. Today HPLC-based and RIA/capture-ELA measurements are established to determine kinins in human plasma, liquor or mine. Serine protease inhibitors need to be added to prevent rapid degradation of the kinins in vitro during sample preparation. Kinins and their degradation products have been studied in various biological milieus such as plasma/ serum, urine, joint fluids, kidney, lung and skeletal muscle [2]. Under normal conditions, the concentration of kinins in these compartments is extremely low for... 

Plasmin, a serine protease (83 kDa), can degrade fibrin, and its degradation products (FDP) are soluble in the blood. Plasmin is formed from its proenzyme (zymogen, precursor), plasminogen (92 kDa), synthesized by the liver, and secreted into the blood circulation, where its concentration is 2 pM. Plasminogen is converted to plasmin by plasminogen activators (serine proteases). 

The serine proteases are the most extensively studied class of enzymes. These enzymes are characterized by the presence of a unique serine amino acid. Two major evolutionary families are presented in this class. The bacterial protease subtilisin and the trypsin family, which includes the enzymes trypsin, chymotrypsin, elastase as well as thrombin, plasmin, and others involved in a diverse range of cellular functions including digestion, blood clotting, hormone production, and complement activation. The trypsin family catalyzes the reaction ... 

Figure 8-11. Representations of three classes of Bi-Bi reaction mechanisms. Horizontal lines represent the enzyme. Arrows indicate the addition of substrates and departure of products. Top An ordered Bi-Bi reaction, characteristic of many NAD(P)H-dependent oxidore-ductases. Center A random Bi-Bi reaction, characteristic of many kinases and some dehydrogenases. Bottom A ping-pong reaction, characteristic of aminotransferases and serine proteases.

FIGURE 11.2 Hydrolysis of esters and peptides by serine proteases reaction scheme (a) and mechanism of action (b) (after Polgar15). (a) ES, noncovalent enzyme-substrate complex (Michaelis complex) EA, the acyl-enzyme PI and P2, the products, (b) X = OR or NHR (acylation) X = OH (deacylation). 

CIEF was also used to follow the production of recombinant antithrombin III (r-AT Iff) in cultures of hamster kidney cells.111 r-AT III inhibits serine proteases such as blood factors (IXa, Xa, and XIa) and thrombin. Interference by the media from which the samples were collected posed some difficulties because some of the media components have similar characteristics to those of the compounds of interest. CIEF was used to determine the pis of the separated components after sample purification by HPLC. Three major peaks showed pis of 4.7, 4.75, and 4.85, and three minor peaks had pis of 5.0, 5.1, and 5.3. These data closely resembled the data already published for serum AT III based on conventional IEF. 

Crystallographic studies (Blow, 1976) of the structure of the enzyme, enzyme-substrate complexes and enzyme-product complexes have identified a common feature in catalysis by the serine protease enzymes such as a-chymotrypsin. This is the well-known charge-relay system (44), in which... 

Fig. 2. The generally accepted mechanism for the hydrolysis of peptide substrates by the serine proteases. The precise locations of the protons are still moot their positions here are taken from Steitz and Shullman (1982). I, Michaelis complex II and V, tetrahedral intermediates III and IV, acyl-enzyme VI, product complex.

The presence of a covalent acyl-enzyme intermediate in the catalytic reaction of the serine proteases made this class of enzymes an attractive candidate for the initial attempt at using subzero temperatures to study an enzymatic mechanism. Elastase was chosen because it is easy to crystallize, diffracts to high resolution, has an active site which is accessible to small molecules diffusing through the crystal lattice, and is stable in high concentrations of cryoprotective solvents. The strategy used in the elastase experiment was to first determine in solution the exact conditions of temperature, organic solvent, and proton activity needed to stabilize an acyl-enzyme intermediate for sufficient time for X-ray data collection, and then to prepare the complex in the preformed, cooled crystal. Solution studies were carried out in the laboratory of Professor A. L. Fink, and were summarized in Section II,A,3. Briefly, it was shown that the chromophoric substrate -carbobenzoxy-L-alanyl-/>-nitrophenyl ester would react with elastase in both solution and in crystals in 70 30 methanol-water at pH 5.2 to form a productive covalent complex. These... 

The serine proteases cleave amide (peptide) bonds in peptides and have a wide variety of functions, including food digestion, blood clotting, and hormone production. They feature as one of the best-understood groups of enzymes as far as mechanism of action is concerned. We are able to ascribe a function to many of the amino acid residues in the active site, and we also understand how they determine the specificity of the various enzymes in the group. 

This reaction encompasses a number of interesting features (general Brpnsted acid/ Brpnsted base catalysis, bifunctional catalysis, enantioselective organocatalysis, very short hydrogen bonds, similarity to serine protease mechanism, oxyanion hole), and we were able to obtain a complete set of DFT based data for the entire reaction path, from the starting catalyst-substrate complex to the product complex. 

Thrombin, a serine protease, cleaves fibrinogen into fibrin to create a fibrous plug and also amplifies its own production through the activation of factor XI and cofactors V and Vlll. Thrombin also plays a crucial role in the activation of platelets through the cleavage of the protease-activated receptors on the platelet surface. Antagonists of G-protein-coupled protease-activated receptor PARi have been synthesised to study the role of thrombin PARi receptor in thrombosis and vascular injury. Thrombosis is the most common cause of death in the industrialised world and, whether through venous thromboembolism, myocardial infarction or stroke, ultimately involves the inappropriate activity of... 

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