Thioesters, 0-amino

With eluent MeOH H O = 40 60% w (flow rate -1 ml/min) full sepai ation was achieved within acetylated and non-acetylated on amino group of eight thioesters of 4-aminobenzenthiosulfinic acid with retention in next order for R - = -CH3, -C,H3,-CH,-CH=CH, -C3H3by RP-HPLC on Spherisorb-ODS-2 (250x4,6 mm). The chromatograms were obtained at 254 and 289 nm. Retention was generalized by In = In - S-(p (cp - MeOH volume pai t in range near 0.4-0.6) as shown in Fig. 

The assumed transition state for this reaction is shown in Scheme 5.5. The two bulky t-butoxy groups are expected to locate at the two apical positions. One of the 3,3 -phenyl groups would effectively shield one face of an imine, and consequently, a diene attacks from the opposite side. Judging from this model, similar selectivities were expected in the Mannich-type reactions of imines with silyl eno-lates. Actually, when ligand 10 was used in the reaction of imine la with S-ethyl-thio-l-trimethylsiloxyethene, the corresponding / -amino thioester was obtained in 84% ee (Scheme 5.6). As expected, the sense of the chiral induction in this case was the reverse of that observed when using catalyst 6 [12, 25]. 

All three elimination reactions--E2, El, and ElcB—occur in biological pathways, but the ElcB mechanism is particularly common. The substrate is usually an alcohol, and the H atom removed is usually adjacent to a carbonyl group, just as in laboratory reactions. Thus, 3-hydroxy carbonyl compounds are frequently converted to unsaturated carbonyl compounds by elimination reactions. A typical example occurs during the biosynthesis of fats when a 3-hydroxybutyryl thioester is dehydrated to the corresponding unsaturated (crotonyl) thioester. The base in this reaction is a histidine amino acid in the enzyme, and loss of the OH group is assisted by simultaneous protonation. 

Tin(Il) shows considerable affinity towards nitrogen, therefore is expected to activate the imino group. The diastereoselective addition of tin(II) enolates derived from thioesters 1 to x-imino-esters 2 is reported12. This reaction proceeds smoothly to afford. vi w-/j-amino acid derivatives 3 (d.r. 95 5) in good yields. Lithium, magnesium, and zinc enolates do not react while titanium enolates give the adducts in low yield with preferential formation of the anti-isomer. 

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.

Reaction 3 is analogous to the dehydrogenation of fatty acyl-CoA thioesters (see Figure 22—3). In isovaleric acidemia, ingestion of protein-rich foods elevates isovalerate, the deacylation product of isovaleryl-CoA. Figures 30-20, 30-21, and 30-22 illustrate the subsequent reactions unique to each amino acid skeleton. 

Particularly important to the pathways of modular synthases is the incorporation of novel precursors, including nonproteinogenic amino acids in NRP systems [17] and unique CoA thioesters in PK and fatty acid synthases [18]. These building blocks expand the primary metabolism and offer practically unlimited variability applied to natural products. Noteworthy within this context is the contiguous placement of biosynthetic genes for novel precursors within the biosynthetic gene cluster in prokaryotes. Such placement has allowed relatively facile elucidation of biosynthetic pathways and rapid discovery of novel enzyme mechanisms to create such unique building blocks. These new pathways offer a continued expansion of the enzymatic toolbox available for chemical catalysis. 

A superspiral consisting of two spirals (coiled coil), known as the leucine zip, is formed in this sequence via dimerisation. The condensation reaction, carried out in the aqueous phase, involves two peptide fragments which contain 15 and 17 amino acid residues respectively. Activation takes place via thioester formation (see Sect. 5.3.1). The ligation to a complete GCN4 matrix gives a new 32 amino acid peptide, which can itself serve as a matrix. The autocatalytic reaction exhibits a parabolic increase in the peptide concentration (caused by product inhibition see Section 6.4). 

The importance of the thioesters was realized at the beginning of the 1950s by Theodor Wieland from the University of Frankfurt am Main (Wieland and Pflei-derer, 1957), who used aminoacyl mercaptans as activated amino acids in peptide syntheses (see Sect. 5.3). Thus, 30 years later, this area of basic research came to be useful for prebiotic chemistry. 

Many substances which are necessary (and even essential) for life functions contain sulphur for example, the amino acids cysteine and methionine, the tripeptide glutathione or coenzyme A (CoA), with the latter containing the SH group of cys-teamine as the terminal functional group. CoA acts as a coenzyme in all important biochemical acylations. The cysteamine SH group bonds to carboxylic acids to give thioesters ... 

Important prebiotic sequences, for example, the linking up of amino acids to form proteins, involve acylation reactions (see Sects. 5.1 and 5.2). Condensation agents are often not very efficient in aqueous phases condensation reactions may involve drastic conditions, such as high temperatures or an acidic environment. Activated amino acids, for example, thioester derivatives, can be considered as starting... 

Arthur L. Weber (1998), now working at the Seti Institute of the Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, reports the successful synthesis of amino acid thioesters from formose substrates (formaldehyde and glycolaldehyde) and ammonia synthesis of alanine and homoserine was possible when thiol catalysts were added to the reaction mixture. On the basis of his experimental results, Weber (1998) suggests the process shown in Fig. 7.10 to be a general prebiotic route to amino acid thioesters. 

Fig. 7.10 A general prebiotic synthetic route to amino acid thioesters (Weber, 1998)...

Dipeptide Amino thioester DCC Peptide thioacid 93 20060L823... 

The CES family of proteins is characterized by the ability to hydrolyze a wide variety of aromatic and aliphatic substrates containing ester, thioester, and amide bonds (Heymann 1980, 1982). Cauxin is a member of the CES family, and is secreted from the proximal straight tubular cells into the urine in a species-, sex-, and age-dependent manner. Therefore, we postulated that cauxin was involved in an enzymatic reaction in cat urine and the products made by the reaction should vary with species, sex, and age. Based on this hypothesis, we searched for physiological substrates and products of cauxin in cat urine and identified 2-amino-7-hydroxy-5,5-dimethyl-4-thiaheptanoic acid, also known as felinine. 

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