Thioester Threonine

A variety of cellular and viral proteins contain fatty acids covalently bound via ester linkages to the side chains of cysteine and sometimes to serine or threonine residues within a polypeptide chain (Figure 9.18). This type of fatty acyl chain linkage has a broader fatty acid specificity than A myristoylation. Myristate, palmitate, stearate, and oleate can all be esterified in this way, with the Cjg and Cjg chain lengths being most commonly found. Proteins anchored to membranes via fatty acyl thioesters include G-protein-coupled receptors, the surface glycoproteins of several viruses, and the transferrin receptor protein. 

The synthesis of the oxazole compound 45 starts with the coupling of the N-protected (/ )-methylcysteine compound 18 with threonine terf-butyl ester using bis(2-oxo-3-oxazolidi-nyl)phosphinyl chloride (BOP-Cl) [15] as a coupling reagent. Jones oxidation of the threonine hydroxy group leads to the ketoamide 44. The desired oxazole ring is closed by treatment with thionylchloride/pyridine. After deprotection, the oxazole, compound 45 is obtained. In the next step the oxazole compound 45 is coupled with the tris(thiazoline) compound 43 to yield the thioester 46. Now Fukuyama closes the fourth and last thiazoline ring (46 47). After conversion of the carboxylic acid function into a methyl-... 

A variety of proteins are acylated by formation of thioesters to cysteine and esters to serine and threonine. Acylation may serve either to anchor the proteins in membranes (e.g., rhodopsin Section 2.3.1) and the mannosidase of the Golgi, or to increase lipophilicity and thus enhance the solubilization of lipids being transported (e.g., the plasma apolipoproteins and milk globule proteins). Proteolipids with fatty acids esterified to threonine residues occur in the myelin sheath in nerves. 

This enzyme s role in humans is to assist the detoxification of propionate derived from the degradation of the amino acids methionine, threonine, valine, and isoleucine. Propionyl-CoA is carboxylated to (5 )-methylmalonyl-CoA, which is epimerized to the (i )-isomer. Coenzyme Bi2-dependent methylmalonyl-CoA mutase isomerizes the latter to succinyl-CoA (Fig. 2), which enters the Krebs cycle. Methylmalonyl-CoA mutase was the first coenzyme B -dependent enzyme to be characterized crystallographically (by Philip Evans and Peter Leadlay). A mechanism for the catalytic reaction based on ab initio molecular orbital calculations invoked a partial protonation of the oxygen atom of the substrate thioester carbonyl group that facilitated formation of an oxycyclopropyl intermediate, which connects the substrate-derived and product-related radicals (14). The partial protonation was supposed to be provided by the hydrogen bonding of this carbonyl to His 244, which was inferred from the crystal structure of the protein. The ability of the substrate and product radicals to interconvert even in the absence of the enzyme was demonstrated by model studies (15). 

Evidence for such a modular pathway has been provided from studies into the biosynthesis of the polyketide backbone 77 of (41 )-4-[(E)-2-butenyl]-4-methyl-L-threonine 78 which is incorporated into cyclosporin A in Tolypo-cladium niveum [117]. The proposed biosynthesis of 77 is presented in Scheme 29. In vitro studies using a cell extract have verified unambiguously that the biosynthetic mechanism is processive, that the first PKS free intermediate is the tetraketide 79, and that methylation unequivocally occurs at the stage of the enzyme bound 3-oxo-4-hexenoic acid thioester 80 which is the triketide product from the second elongation cycle. These and other results indicate that the methyl transferase activity is inherent in the second module of the putative PKS. 

The a-oxoamine synthases family is a small group of fold-type I enzymes that catalyze Claisen condensations between amino acids and acyl-CoA thioesters (Figure 16). Members of this family are (1) 8-amino-7-oxononanoate (AON) synthase (AONS), which catalyzes the first committed step in the biosynthesis of biotine, (2) 5-aminolevulinate synthase (ALAS), responsible for the condensation between glycine and succinyl-CoA, which yields aminolevulinate, the universal precursor of tetrapyrrolic compounds, (3) serine palmitoyltransferase (SPT), which catalyzes the first reaction in sphingolipids synthesis, and (4) 2-amino-3-ketobutyrate CoA ligase (KBL), involved in the threonine degradation pathway. With the exception of the reaction catalyzed by KLB, all condensation reactions involve a decarboxylase step. 

That ACMS II binds 4 MHA (or its structural analog p toluic acid) as thioester led Stindl and Keller (43) to probe ACMS 11 with soluble thkiesters of p toluic acid in the presence of threonine in order to see if these would be incorporated into p-toluyl Chrco-... 

Sortases are transpeptidases, which use the linear epitope LPXTjG as a recognition site within a target peptide or protein. The cleavage of the amide bond between the threonine and glycine residue (J.) results in an acyl-enzyme intermediate. Subsequently, the thioester intermediate is attacked by a nucleophilic co-substrate comprised of an N-terminal glycine residue in order to form a native peptide bond. Sortase A (SrtA) derived from Staphylococcus aureus is commonly used for site-specific N- and C-terminal... 

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