Substrate Glucosidase

Hydrolases. Enzymes catalysing the hydrolytic cleavage ofC —O, C —N and C —C bonds. The systematic name always includes hydrolase but the recommended name is often formed by the addition of ase to the substrate. Examples are esterases, glucosidases, peptidases, proteinases, phospholipases. Other bonds may be cleaved besides those cited, e.g. during the action of sulphatases and phosphatases. 

An example of a direct spectrophotometrical assay is the use of synthetic peptide -nitroanilide substrates to determine protease activity. The /)-nitroani1ine group Hberated from the substrates by the protease can be determined spectrophotometricaHy at 410 nm. An example of an indirect (coupled) spectrophotometric assay is the determination of a-amylase using -nitrophenyLmaltoheptaoside. Initially, the substrate is cleaved by the a-amylase and subsequentiy one of the reaction products, -nitrophenyLmaltotrioside, is cleaved by a-glucosidase, hberating -nitrophenyl, a chromophore... 

Other inverting glucosidases which conform to the pattern of direct hydrolysis of glycosyl fluorides having the correct anomeric configuration, and transglycosylation with inversion if the anomeric configuration is opposite to that of the natural substrates are trehalase from rabbit renal cortex and from the yeast Candida tropicalis, and ) -D-xylosidase from Bacillus pu-milis. ... 

In order to account for the inability of many enzymes to bind the protonated form of the basic inhibitors or permanently cationic ones better than uncharged analogs (for example, yS-o-galactosidase from E. coli, and P-v>-glucosidase from almonds), it was proposed that the enzyme could proton-ate the inhibitor at the active site by a cationic acid (for example, protonated histidine). If proton transfer cannot occur, the attractive forces due to the carboxylate would be canceled by the repulsion from the cationic acid. Experimental evidence for this proposal is, however, still lacking. In fi-D-gn-lactosidase from E. coli, a tyrosine is presumed to be responsible for the protonation of substrates. ... 

One of the long-standing criticisms of Bis is that the incubation period required in order to confirm a satisfactory sterilization process imposes an undesirable delay on the release of the product. This problem has been overcome, with respect to steam sterilization at least, by the use of a detection system in which a spore enzyme, a-glucosidase (reflective of spore viability), converts a non-fluorescent substrate into a fluorescent product in as little as Ihour. 

Emil Fischer developed a strong interest in the structural requirements for enzyme activity as the result of effects of changes in the structures of the a-and -methyl glucosides on their properties as substrates for the enzymes invertin and emulsin, which, as we have seen, he had shown to be a- and yS-glucosidases, respectively. As already mentioned, he was fascinated in 1895 by the fact that emulsin had no effect on either the a- or /2-methyl xylosides (33). In a 1912 publication with Karl Zach (34), he reported that -methyl 6-deoxyglucoside was hydrolyzed by emulsin and wrote ... 

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