Bonds thioester

ATP Adenosine triphosphate. Chemical energy generated by substrate oxidations is conserved by formation of high-energy compounds such as adenosine diphosphate (ADP) and adenosine triphosphate (ATP) or compounds containing the thioester bond. 

The activation of acyl groups for transfer by CoA can be appreciated by comparing the hydrolysis of the thioester bond of acetyl-CoA with hydrolysis of a simple oxygen ester ... 

The mechanism of succinyl-CoA synthetase is postulated to involve displacement of CoA by phosphate, forming succinyl phosphate at the active site, followed by transfer of the phosphoryl group to an active-site histidine (making a phosphohistidine intermediate) and release of succinate. The phosphoryl moiety is then transferred to GDP to form GTP (Figure 20.13). This sequence of steps preserves the energy of the thioester bond of succinyl-CoA in a series of high-energy intermediates that lead to a molecule of ATP ... 

In bacteria, ACP is a small protein of 77 residues that transports an acyl group from enzyme to enzyme. In vertebrates, however, ACP appears to be a long arm on a multienzyme synthase complex, whose apparent function is to shepherd an acyl group from site to site within the complex. As in acetyl CoA, the acyl group in acetyl ACP is linked by a thioester bond to the sulfur atom of phosphopantetheine. The phosphopantetheine is in turn linked to ACP through the side-chain -OH group of a serine residue in the enzyme. 

The initial reaction between acetyl-CoA and oxaloacetate to form citrate is catalyzed by citrate synthase which forms a carbon-carbon bond between the methyl carbon of acetyl-CoA and the carbonyl carbon of oxaloacetate. The thioester bond of the resultant citryl-CoA is hydrolyzed, releasing citrate and CoASH—an exergonic reaction. 

Figure29-1. Partial reactions in the attachment of ubiquitin (UB) to proteins. (1) The terminal COOH of ubiquitin forms a thioester bond with an -SH of E, in a reaction driven by conversion of ATP to AMP and PP. Subsequent hydrolysis of PP by pyrophosphatase ensures that reaction 1 will proceed readily. (2) A thioester exchange reaction transfers activated ubiquitin to Ej. (3) E3 catalyzes transfer of ubiquitin to e-amino groups of lysyl residues of target proteins.

Figure 17.27 The EPL process involves a fusion protein containing an intein tag plus a CBD. The fusion protein is captured on an immobilized chitin resin and after removal of contaminating proteins, it is eluted using thiophenol, which cleaves at the thioester bond between the intein and the desired expressed protein. This releases a phenylth-ioester-activated protein that can be used in the native chemical ligation reaction with another peptide containing an N-terminal cysteine residue. Conjugation results in a native amide (peptide) bond formed between them.

The mechanism proposed for the aldehyde dehydrogenases includes an enzyme-bound hemiacetal intermediate, possibly via a thioester bond with a cysteine (100). The specificity of the enzyme for aldehydes is quite broad. Apparent Km values for many aliphatic and aromatic aldehydes are in the micromolar range, with the highest reaction velocities observed for aldehydes with electron-with-drawing substituents on the a carbon for aliphatic aldehydes and in the para position for aromatics (99). 

Upon activation of complement (by either the classical or alternative pathways), C3 binds covalently to the target, and an internal thioester bond in C3 is rearranged to yield a free sulphydryl group on C3 and an ester link between C3 and a hydroxyl group on the target (Fig. 3.8). The resulting co-... 

An important drug in the present context is the mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist spironolactone (7.74, Fig. 7.12). Among its many metabolic reactions, spironolactone is readily hydrolyzed at the thioester bond (Fig. 7.12, Reaction a) to form deacetyl-spironolactone (7.75, Fig. 7.12), a metabolite found in a variety of tissues [155 -157]. This thiol compound, which is also a potent mineralocorticoid antagonist, promotes the mechanism-based inactivation of hepatic, adrenal, and testicular cytochrome P450 isozymes. There is now good evidence to indicate that this behavior is the result of microsomal 5-oxidation (see Chapt. 7 in [7]). When spironolactone was incubated with liver microsomes from rats pretreated with dexamethasone (an inducer of CYP3A), the sulfinic and sulfonic acid derivatives were characterized [158]. Perhaps the importance of the 5-deacetylation of spironolactone... 

Thiol elimination to create a C=C bond is also seen in the metabolism of spironolactone (11.101, Fig. 11.13) [131]. This diuretic drug undergoes a number of metabolic reactions in humans, one of which is ready hydrolysis at the thioester bond to yield deacetyl-spironolactone (see Chapt. 7). This reaction is in competition with other pathways such as lactone hydrolysis, S-oxygenation, and dethioacetylation. The latter reaction is the one of interest here, since the elimination of CH3CO-SH transforms the C(5)-C(6) bond into a C=C bond to produce the active metabolite canrenone (11.102, Fig. 

One of the central mechanistic questions regarding ubiquitination has been whether the reaction utilizes general acid/base catalysis, possibly in a manner analogous to the catalysis of peptide-bond cleavage. For example, an acidic catalytic residue could deprotonate the substrate lysine and make it a better nucleophile for attacking the ubiquitin thioester bond. In addition, a basic catalytic residue could polarize the thioester bond making the carbonyl carbon a better electrophile, and... 

Earlier in this chapter, it was mentioned that many of the nonprotein amino acids are components of nonribosomal peptides. During such a biosynthesis, the peptide is attached to a carrier protein through a thioester bond, until chain termination occurs and the final product is released. The carrier protein is posttranslationally modified by the attachment of a phosphopantetheinyl group from coenzyme A. This step gives rise to the active carrier protein with a phosphopantetheine arm upon which amino acids are added to during NRPS. As an example, loading of isoleucine onto the carrier protein is depicted below (Scheme 5). Further details about nonribosomal peptide syntheses and enzymatic reactions can be found in Chapter 5.19. 

Once the 16-carbon atom acyl chain is formed, the thioester link between the acyl group and the 4 -phosphopante-theine of the carrier protein is hydrolysed by a thioesterase and palmitate is released. Synthesis of shorter-chain fatty acids, e.g. myristic (a C-14 carbon acid), requires a specific cytosolic thioesterase (thioesterase II) which is present in liver. It hydrolyses the thioester bond when fatty acids reach lengths of less than 16 carbon atoms. 

Coenzyme A (see also p. 106) is a nucleotide with a complex structure (see p. 80). It serves to activate residues of carboxylic acids (acyl residues). Bonding of the carboxy group of the carboxylic acid with the thiol group of the coenzyme creates a thioester bond (-S-CO-R see p. 10) in which the acyl residue has a high chemical potential. It can therefore be transferred to other molecules in exergonic reactions. This fact plays an important role in lipid metabolism in particular (see pp. 162ff), as well as in two reactions of the tricarboxylic acid cycle (see p. 136). 

In standard conditions and at pH 7, the change in the chemical potential G (AG°, see p.l8) in this reaction amounts to -32 kj mol and it is therefore as high as the AG° of ATP hydrolysis (see p. 18). In addition to the energy-rich thioester bond, acetyl-CoA also has seven other hydrolyzable bonds with different degrees of stability. These bonds, and the fragments that arise when they are hydrolyzed, will be discussed here in sequence. 

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