Chymotrypsin serine residue

What is the nucleophile that chymotrypsin employs to attack the substrate carbonyl carbon atom A clue came from the fact that chymotrypsin contains an extraordinarily reactive serine residue. Chymotrypsin molecules... 

The catalytic mechanism of the subtilisins is the same as that of the digestive enzymes trypsin and chymotrypsin as well as that of enzymes in the blood clotting cascade, reproduction and other mammalian enzymes. The enzymes are known as serine proteases due to the serine residue which is crucial for catalysis (Kraut, 1977 and Polgar, 1987)... 

The mechanism of action of chymotrypsin can be rationalized as follows (Figure 13.5). The enzyme-substrate complex forms, with the substrate being positioned correctly through hydrogen bonding and interaction with the pocket as described above. The nucleophilicity of a serine residue is only modest, but here it is improved by... 

From study of peptides formed by partial hydrolysis of the 32P-labeled chymotrypsin, the sequence of amino acids surrounding the reactive serine was established and serine 195 was identified as the residue whose side chain hydroxyl group became phosphorylated. The same sequence Gly-Asp-Ser-Gly was soon discovered around reactive serine residues in trypsin, thrombin, elastase, and in the trypsin-like cocoonase used by silkmoths to escape from their cocoons.198 We know now that these are only a few of the enzymes in a very large family of serine proteases, most of which have related active site sequences.199 200 Among these are thrombin and other enzymes of the blood-clotting cascade (Fig. 12-17), proteases of lysosomes, and secreted proteases. 

The mammalian serine proteases have a common tertiary structure as well as a common function. The enzymes are so called because they have a uniquely reactive serine residue that reacts irreversibly with organophosphates such as diisopropyl fluorophosphate. The major pancreatic enzymes—trypsin, chymotrypsin, and elastase—are kinetically very similar, catalyzing the hydrolysis of peptides... 

In the acylation step a nucleophilic group on one of the amino-acid side chains at the active site behaves as the nucleophile. As we have seen in Section 25-9B, the nucleophile of carboxypeptidase is the free carboxyl group of glutamic acid 270. In several other enzymes (chymotrypsin, subtilisin, trypsin, elastase, thrombin, acetylcholinesterase), it is the hydroxyl group of a serine residue ... 

The serine proteases are a large family of proteolytic ( enzymes that use the reaction mechanism for nucleophilic catalysis outlined in equations (3) and (4), with a serine residue as the reactive nucleophile. The best known members of the family are three closely related digestive enzymes trypsin, chymotrypsin, and elastase. These enzymes are synthesized in the mammalian pancreas as inactive precursors termed zymogens. They are secreted into the small intestine, where they are activated by proteolytic cleavage in a manner discussed in chapter 9. 

Trypsin, chymotrypsin, and elastase—three members of the serine protease family—catalyze the hydrolysis of proteins at internal peptide bonds adjacent to different types of amino acids. Trypsin prefers lysine or arginine residues chymotrypsin, aromatic side chains and elastase, small, nonpolar residues. Carboxypeptidases A and B, which are not serine proteases, cut the peptide bond at the carboxyl-terminal end of the chain. Carboxypeptidase A preferentially removes aromatic residues carboxypeptidase B, basic residues. (Illustration copyright by Irving Geis. Reprinted by permission.)... 

Schematic diagrams of the amino acid sequences of chymotrypsin, trypsin, and elastase. Each circle represents one amino acid. Amino acid residues that are identical in all three proteins are in solid color. The three proteins are of different lengths but have been aligned to maximize the correspondence of the amino acid sequences. All of the sequences are numbered according to the sequence in chymotrypsin. Long connections between nonadjacent residues represent disulfide bonds. Locations of the catalytically important histidine, aspartate, and serine residues are marked. The links that are cleaved to transform the inactive zymogens to the active enzymes are indicated by parenthesis marks. After chymotrypsinogen is cut between residues 15 and 16 by trypsin and is thus transformed into an active protease, it proceeds to digest itself at the additional sites that are indicated these secondary cuts have only minor effects on the enzymes s catalytic activity. (Illustration copyright by Irving Geis. Reprinted by permission.)...

The properties and spatial arrangement of the amino acid residues forming the active site of an enzyme will determine which molecules can bind and be substrates for that enzyme. Substrate specificity is often determined by changes in relatively few amino acids in the active site. This is clearly seen in the three digestive enzymes trypsin, chymotrypsin and elastase (see Topic C5). These three enzymes belong to a family of enzymes called the serine proteases - serine because they have a serine residue in the active site that is critically involved in catalysis and proteases because they catalyze the hydrolysis of peptide bonds in proteins. The three enzymes cleave peptide bonds in protein substrates on the carboxyl side of certain amino acid residues. 

Thep-nitrophenyl ester of diazomalonic acid has been made. While this derivative proved useful for acylating the serine residues at the active sites of trypsin and chymotrypsin (e.g. Vaughan and Westheimer, 1969a,b ... 

Boronic acid derivatives form stable tetrahedral adducts with hydroxide ion and they behave as strong inhibitors of hydrolases. This leads to the assumption that the boronic acid derivatives bind to the serine residue at the active site of the enzymes in a structure resembling the tetrahedral intermediate (13)29>. The binding affinity of N-benzoylaminomethaneboronic acid for chymotrypsin, for example, is reported to be two orders of magnitude stronger than that of a hippuric acid derivative 30). 

Within each protease family, individual members will differ in their substrate specificity. Most proteases have extended substrate binding sites and will bind to and recognize several amino acid residues of a polypeptide substrate (see Figure 2). Usually one of these will be the primary binding site. For example, in the serine proteases chymotrypsin, trypsin, and elastase, the primary substrate binding site is the Si subsite... 

Three of the four pancreatic proteases (trypsin, chymotrypsin, and elastase) are called serine proteases because they are all dependent for activity on the side chain of a serine residue in the active site. This serine residue attacks the carbonyl group of the peptide bond to cleave the peptide, giving an acyl-enzyme intermediate (Chap. 8). This ester bond is then hydrolyzed in a second step ... 

The different specificities of the proteolytic enzymes are due to specificity pockets at the binding site (Fig. 15-8). These pockets on the surface of the enzyme accommodate the side-chain of the amino acid residue located on the carbonyl side of the scissile bond of the substrate. In trypsin, a serine residue present in chymotrypsin is replaced by an aspartate residue. This allows the binding of cationic arginine and lysine residues instead of bulky aromatic side chains. In elastase, two glycine residues of chymotrypsin are replaced by valine and threonine. Their bulky side chains block the specificity pocket so that elastase hydrolyzes peptide bonds adjacent to smaller, uncharged side chains. 

More than a third of all known proteolytic enzymes are serine proteases (2). The family name stems from the nucleophilic serine residue within the active site, which attacks the carbonyl moiety of the substrate peptide bond to form an acyl-enzyme intermediate. Nucleophilicity of the catalytic serine is commonly dependent on a catalytic triad of aspartic acid, histidine, and serine—commonly referred to as a charge relay system (3). First observed by Blow over 30 years ago in the structure of chymotrypsin (4), the same combination has been found in four other three-dimensional protein folds that catalyze hydrolysis of peptide bonds. Examples of these folds are observed in trypsin. 

The sequence of a protein of interest can be compared with all other known sequences to ascertain whether significant similarities exist. Does this protein belong to one of the establishedfamiliesl A search for kinship between a newly sequenced protein and the thousands of previously sequenced ones takes only a few seconds on a personal computer (Section 7.2). If the newly isolated protein is a member of one of the established classes of protein, we can begin to infer information about the protein s function. For instance, chymotrypsin and trypsin are members of the serine protease family, a clan of proteolytic enzymes that have a common catalytic mechanism based on a reactive serine residue (Section 9.1.4). If the sequence of the newly isolated protein shows sequence similarity with trypsin or chymotrypsin, the result suggests that it may be a serine protease. 

Figure 7.17. Convergent Evolntion of Protease Active Sites. The relative positions of the three key residues shown are nearly identical in the active sites of the serine proteases chymotrypsin and subtilisin.

---