Glycine cleavage system: reaction mechanism, physiological significance, and hyperglycinemia

The glycine cleavage system catalyzes the following reversible reaction: Glycine + H(4)folate + NAD(+) <==> 5,10-methylene-H(4)folate + CO(2) + NH(3) + NADH + H(+)The glycine cleavage system is widely distributed in animals, plants and bacteria and consists of three intrinsic and one common components: those are i) P-protein, a pyridoxal phosphate-containing protein, ii) T-protein, a protein required for the tetrahydrofolate-dependent reaction, iii) H-protein, a protein that carries the aminomethyl intermediate and then hydrogen through the prosthetic lipoyl moiety, and iv) L-protein, a common lipoamide dehydrogenase. In animals and plants, the proteins form an enzyme complex loosely associating with the mitochondrial inner membrane. In the enzymatic reaction, H-protein converts P-protein, which is by itself a potential alpha-amino acid decarboxylase, to an active enzyme, and also forms a complex with T-protein. In both glycine cleavage and synthesis, aminomethyl moiety bound to lipoic acid of H-protein represents the intermediate that is degraded to or can be formed from N(5),N(10)-methylene-H(4)folate and ammonia by the action of T-protein. N(5),N(10)-Methylene-H(4)folate is used for the biosynthesis of various cellular substances such as purines, thymidylate and methionine that is the major methyl group donor through S-adenosyl-methionine. This accounts for the physiological importance of the glycine cleavage system as the most prominent pathway in serine and glycine catabolism in various vertebrates including humans. Nonketotic hyperglycinemia, a congenital metabolic disorder in human infants, results from defective glycine cleavage activity. The majority of patients with nonketotic hyperglycinemia had lesions in the P-protein gene, whereas some had mutant T-protein genes. The only patient classified into the degenerative type of nonketotic hyperglycinemia had an H-protein devoid of the prosthetic lipoyl residue. The crystallography of normal T-protein as well as biochemical characterization of recombinants of the normal and mutant T-proteins confirmed why the mutant T-proteins had lost enzyme activity. Putative mechanisms of cellular injuries including those in the central nervous system of patients with nonketotic hyperglycinemia are discussed.     

幻数团簇丝氨酸八聚体:结构和手性特征

自从2001年丝氨酸八聚体第一次在质谱中被观察到,这种奇特的幻数团簇就受到研究者们的广泛关注。丝氨酸八聚体具有显著的同手性优势,而且它的手性能够通过对映选择性取代反应传递给其他分子。一些研究者提出这种丝氨酸八聚体的同手性优势很可能与生命的同手性起源相关。本文综述了丝氨酸八聚体的产生、结构和手性特征等方面的研究结果和进展,其中包括运用串联质谱（MS/MS）,气相H/D交换,离子淌度,红外解离光谱等多种实验方法以及理论计算对丝氨酸八聚体及含有取代单元的八聚体的相关研究。这些结果逐步地揭示了丝氨酸八聚体的结构特点和性质,进一步加深了人们对其在手性识别和手性传递方面的作用的理解。然而,由于体系的复杂性,真正地理解其结构、同手性选择性的原因以及其在生物分子同手性起源中的作用仍是一个非常具有挑战性的问题。     

Thermal polycondensation synthesis of biomimetic serine-containing derivatives of polyaspartate: Potent inhibitors of calcium carbonate and phosphate crystallization

Biocompatable, degradable polymers that are powerful inhibitors of mineral formation were synthesized by automated solid phase and thermal polycondensation techniques. These polymers are analogues of natural proteins isolated from CaCO₃ biomineral and consist primarily of polyaspartic acid and serine or modified serine residues. Phosphorylation of the serine residues greatly enhanced the inhibitory activity of the polymers. Synthesis in the presence of orthophosphoric acid resulted in the decomposition and modification of serine. These modified residues when incorporated into the polyaspartic acid also enhanced inhibitory activity of the polymers. © 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Purification and biochemical properties of SDS-stable low molecular weight alkaline serine protease from Citrullus colocynthis

A low molecular weight serine protease from seeds of Citrullus colocynthis was purified to electrophoretic homogeneity with high level of catalytic efficiency (22,945 M^?1 S^?1). The enzyme was a monomer with molecular mass of 25 kDa estimated by SDS–PAGE. The enzyme was highly active over a pH range of 6.5–9.0 and temperature range of 20–80 °C, with maximum activity at pH 7.5 and at 50 °C. The K_m and K_cat were 73 μg/mL and 67/s, respectively. The enzyme was strongly inhibited by PMSF, moderately by soybean trypsin inhibitor, indicating that the enzyme was a serine protease. The enzyme retained 86 and 73% of its activity in the presence of urea and DTT, respectively, and its activity was slightly enhanced in the presence of anionic detergent (SDS). Thus, the enzyme is a novel SDS-stable protease with high catalytic efficiency over wide ranges of pH and temperature which is commercially promising for various industrial applications.     

Interactions of Anionic and Neutral Serine with Pure and Metal-doped Graphene Studied by Density Functional Theory

We present a theoretical study of interactions of anionic and neutral serine (Ser) on pure or metal-doped graphene surfaces using density functional theory calculations. Interactions of both types of Ser with the pure graphene surface show weak non-covalent interactions due to the formation of -COOH…π, -COO^-…π, and -OH…π interactions. On metaldoped graphene, covalent interactions to the surface dominate, due to the formation of strong metal-O and O-metal-O interactions. Furthermore, the doped Fe, Cr, Mn, Al, or Ti enhances the ability of graphene to attract both types of Ser by a combination of the adsorption energy, the density of states, the Mulliken atomic charges, and differences of electron density. At the same time, the interaction strengths of anionic Ser on various graphene surfaces are stronger than those of neutral Ser. These results provide useful insights for the rational design and development of graphene-based sensors for the two forms of Ser by introducing appropriate doped atoms. Ti and Fe are suggested to be the best choices among all doped atoms for the anionic Ser and neutral Ser, respectively.     

Heat capacity of <Emphasis Type="Italic">D</Emphasis>- and <Emphasis Type="Italic">DL</Emphasis>-serine in a temperature range of 5.5 to 300 K

Heat capacity of D- and DL-serine was measured using adiabatic calorimetry in a temperature range of 5.5 to 300 K, and then thermodynamic functions were calculated. The difference in heat capacity (C _PD-C _PDL) between two species indicates a small anomaly in D-serine near 15 K and a systematic excess over DL for temperatures > 30 K. This is much larger, than a difference in thermodynamic functions measured so far for the polymorphs of organic molecular crystals. The excess is fitted well to Einstein contribution with characteristic temperature of 185 K which is equivalent to vibrational mode at 129 cm⁻¹.     

Temperature effects on the IR spectra of crystalline amino acids,dipeptides, and polyamino acids. II. L-and DL-serines

The IR spectra of L-and DL-serines H ₃ ⁺ -CH(CH₂OH)-COO^? (without diluents) were investigated in the temperature range 93–413 K; the changes in the IR spectra due to temperature variations were correlated with previously obtained diffraction data on anisotropic compression of structure and changes in the geometrical parameters of the hydrogen bonds.     

尿激酶(uPA)化学合成抑制剂

胞外蛋白的水解是恶性肿瘤细胞侵袭和转移的必要条件,各种蛋白酶的水解反应降解细胞外基质,破坏细胞/细胞间的联系以适应细胞的迁移。尿激酶型纤溶酶原激活物(尿激酶,urokinase-type plasminogen activator, uPA)激活不具有丝氨酸蛋白酶活性的纤溶酶原为活性纤溶酶,在保持血流畅通与防止血栓的形成中具有重要的作用。此外,活性尿激酶降解细胞外基质,激活多种基质金属蛋白酶,以适应肿瘤细胞的侵袭、扩散和转移。抑制尿激酶的活性被公认为是抑制癌症转移的有效方法,其中合成小分子uPA抑制剂成为抗癌治疗中的新理念。本文综述了合成uPA抑制剂的研究现状。