MS<Superscript>n</Superscript> characterization of protonated cyclic peptides and metal complexes

MSⁿ experiments involving low energy collisionally activated dissociation (CAD) in a quadrupole ion trap were used to characterize the fragmentation of alkali, alkaline earth and transition metal complexes of five cyclic peptides, and the results were compared with those obtained for protonated cyclic peptides. Complexes with metal ions produced enhanced abundances of the most diagnostic fragments for elucidating the primary structures. For cyclosporin A, nickel and lithium complexes gave additional sequence information compared with the protonated peptide. For depsipeptides, sodium and lead complexes were superior to the protonated peptide or other metal complexes for sequencing residues, and CAD of the lead complexes led to preferential cleavage of two residues at a time. For cyclic lipopeptides, complexes with silver, nickel and strontium ions provided enhanced abundances of key fragment ions.     

Optically active cyclic hexapeptides with covalently attached pyrene probes: selective alkaline earth metal ion recognition using excimer emission

[structure: see text] The synthesis of two optically active pyrene-modified cyclic hexapetides and their selectivity toward the complexation of alkaline earth metal ions are reported. Complexation was studied by optical and chiroptical methods. The cyclic peptides are forming 2:1 sandwich complexes with the metal ions.     

Synthesis of a family of cyclic peptide-based anion receptors

We report here the design and synthesis of a family of novel backbone modified cyclic peptides, bearing dipicolylamine side chains for metal complexation and subsequent anion binding studies. Two approaches to the cyclic peptides were investigated. Initially, a stepwise approach was employed, involving solid-phase assembly of oxazole-based building blocks, followed by solution-phase macrolactamisation of the resulting linear precursor. The alternative strategy involved the formation of linear bisoxazole fragments in solution-phase, followed by a cyclodimerisation reaction. The zinc(II) complexes of these receptors bind selectively to di- and tri-phosphate ions over hydrogenphosphate.     

Electron capture dissociation of peptides metalated with alkaline-earth metal ions

The possible use of divalent alkaline-earth metal ions, including Mg2+, Ca2+, Sr2+, and Ba2+, as charge carrier for electron capture dissociation of peptides was investigated. Model peptides of RGGGVGGGR and NGGGWGGGN were used to simplify the interpretation of spectral information. It was demonstrated that useful electron capture dissociation (ECD) tandem mass spectra of these metalated peptides could be generated. Interestingly, peptides metalated with different alkaline-earth metal ions generated very similar ECD tandem mass spectra. Metalated c-ions and z-ions were the predominant fragment ions. Only Mg2+-metalated peptides gave somewhat different results. Some nonmetalated c-ions were observed from ECD of [RGGGVGGGR + Mg]2+ but not from [NGGGWGGGN + Mg]2+. Together with some ab initio calculations, it was established that the bound metal ions might activate the acidity of the amide hydrogen. With the presence of high proton affinity moiety, such as N-terminal amino group and/or side chain of the arginine residues, the metalated peptide ions could exist predominantly in their zwitterion forms, in which one or two backbone amide group(s) was deprotonated and the high proton affinity functional group(s) was protonated. It was believed that electron capture leads primarily to the reduction of the mobile proton rather than the metal ions. With this zwitterion model, the formation of nonmetalated c-fragments and the generation of similar ECD spectra for peptides metalated with various alkaline-earth metal ions could readily to be explained. Another interesting observation in the ECD mass spectra of metalated peptides is related to the enhanced formation of the minor ECD products, i.e., (c - 1)(+*) and (z + 1)+ ions. Together with ab initio calculations using a truncated peptide model, various possible reaction mechanisms for the formation of these minor ECD products were evaluated. It was concluded that hydrogen transfer between the initiated formed c and z(.) species plays an important role in the formation (c - 1)(+*) and (z + 1)+ ions. Although peptides metalated with these metal ions do not have better ECD efficiency compared to the multiply-protonated peptides, it provides practical accessibility of ECD methods to analyze small peptides with no basic amino acid residues.     

Attachment of metal trications to peptides

Gas-phase complexes of triply charged metal ions with peptides may be readily produced using electrospray ionization, including for small peptides such as bradykinin and peptides with no basic residues such as insulin chain A. Attachment without charge-reduction is demonstrated for all trications studied: La(3+), Al(3+), Ga(3+), Fe(3+), V(3+), and Cr(3+). The intensities of adducts are often comparable to, or even exceed, those of protonated analogs in any charge state.     

Artificial oligopeptide scaffolds for stoichiometric metal binding

Two artificial peptides with pendant pyridine or bipyridine ligands have been synthesized and incorporated into oligomeric strands that are analogous to peptide nucleic acid. Spectrophotometric titrations with Cu(2+) and Fe(2+) show that the oligomers bind stoichiometric quantities of transition metals based on the number of pendant ligands. The identities of the titration products are confirmed by high resolution mass spectrometry. In the case of the bipyridine tripeptides, the titration stoichiometry and mass spectra indicate that the metal ions form interstrand cross-links between two oligopeptides, creating duplex structures linked exclusively by metal ions. Calculated molecular structures of the metalated oligopeptides and duplexes indicate that the peptide backbone acts as a scaffold for the directed assembly of metal ions. Electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy of the Cu-containing molecules have varying degrees of electronic interaction based on their charge and supramolecular structure. Cyclic voltammetry of the Fe(2+)- and Cu(2+)-linked bpy oligopeptide duplexes shows that they possess unique electrochemical signatures based on the redox reactivity of the metal complex.     

Columnar assembly formation and metal binding of cyclic tri-beta-peptides having terpyridine ligands

[reaction: see text] A novel cyclic tri-beta-peptide having terpyridine (tpy) metal ligands was synthesized to investigate its assembly formation and metal complexation. Microscopic observation revealed that this cyclic peptide formed a rod-shaped molecular assembly. The assembly was able to bind Cu(II) because the tpy ligands covered the surface of the crystal, keeping the tpy plane parallel to the ring plane of the cyclic tri-beta-peptide.     

Self‐Assembled Cyclic Structures from Copper(II) Peptoids

Metal–ligand coordination is a key interaction in the self‐assembly of both biopolymers and synthetic oligomers. Although the binding of metal ions to synthetic proteins and peptides is known to yield high‐order structures, the self‐assembly of peptidomimetic molecules upon metal binding is still challenging. Herein we explore the self‐assembly of three peptoid trimers bearing a bipyridine ligand at their C‐terminus, a benzyl group at their N‐terminus, and a polar group (N‐ethyl‐R) in the middle position (R=OH, OCH₃, or NH₂) upon Cu²⁺ coordination. X‐ray diffraction analysis revealed unique, highly symmetric, dinuclear cyclic structure or aqua‐bridged dinuclear double‐stranded peptoid helicates, formed by the self‐assembly of two peptoid molecules with two Cu²⁺ ions. Only the macrocycle with the highest number of intermolecular hydrogen bonds is stable in solution, while the other two disassemble to their corresponding monometallic complexes.     

Separation and evaluation of soybean protein hydrolysates prepared by immobilized metal ion affinity chromatography with different metal ions

Metal ion affinity chromatography is widely used to purify peptides on the basis of the dissimilarities of their amino acids. However, researchers are interested in the separation differences between different metal ions in this method. In our study, four kinds of commonly used metal ions are compared by the amount of immobilized metal ion on iminodiacetic acid-Sepharose and binding amount of soybean peptide to immobilized iminodiacetic acid-Mn(+) adsorbents and evaluated by high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) profiles. The results show that due to the different adsorption behaviors of metal ions, the binding ability order of soybean protein peptide on the column should be Fe(3+) > Cu(2+) > Zn(2+) > Ca(2+). The HPLC profiles show that peptides adsorbed by four kinds of metal ions display similar strong hydrophobic characteristics.     

Selective Complexation of S‐block Cations with Nanotubular Silk Type Cyclopeptides: A DFT Study

Density functional theory (DFT) was used to study the interaction of alkali metal cations (Li⁺, Na⁺ and K⁺) with cyclic peptides constructed from silk type macrocycles ( Silk1, Silk2, Silk3, Silk4, Silk5 and Silk6 ). The calculated binding energies were used as a base for investigating the selectivity of the cyclic peptides in biniding to considered metals ions. The highest cation selectivity for Li⁺ compared to the other alkali metal ions was observed. The orbital nature of different interactions between the metal cations and the cyclic peptides was analyzed using NBO analysis. The main types of driving force for host‐guest interactions was investigated and it was found that the electron‐donating O offers lone pair electrons to the contacting LP* of alkali metal cations     

Peptide Nanotubes

The self‐assembly of different classes of peptide, including cyclic peptides, amyloid peptides and surfactant‐like peptides into nanotube structures is reviewed. The modes of self‐assembly are discussed. Additionally, applications in bionanotechnology and synthetic materials science are summarized.     

Influences of peptide side chains on the metal ion binding site in metal ion-cationized peptides: Participation of aromatic rings in metal chelation

Aromatic side chains on amino acids influence the fragmentations of cationic complexes of doubly charged metal ions and singly deprotonated peptides. The metal ion interacts with an aromatic side chain and binds to adjacent amide nitrogens. When fragmentation occurs, this bonding leads to the formation of abundant metal-containing a-type ions by reactions that occur at the sites of amino acids that contain the aromatic side chain. Furthermore, formation of metal-containing immonium ions of the amino acids that contain the aromatic side chain also are formed. The abundant a-type ions may be useful in interpretation strategies in which it is necessary to locate in a peptide the position of an amino acid that bears an aromatic side chain.     

Gas-phase anionic complexes of alkali metal ions and peptides: Structure and collision activated decompositions

Alkali metal ions and anionic peptides can be desorbed into the gas phase to give metal-bound peptides and bis(peptide) complexes bearing a ? 1 charge. Although amide nitrogens of peptide bonds are deprotonated in the gas phase by alkali metal ions, this reacion does not occur in solution. Metal-bound dipeptide anions exist as a single structure, whereas those of tripeptide complexes have three structures as revealed by tandem mass spectrometric studies. Ions of bis(peptide) complexes of alkali metals decompose upon collisional activation principally to form deprotonated peptides, in contrast to bis(peptide) complexes of alkaline earth metal ions, which undergo elimination of a neutral peptide.     

Selective response of cyclodextrin-dye hydrogel to metal ions

The design and preparation of novel hydrogels have gained much interest recently, and in spite of the promising results to date, increasing pressure remains to develop novel gels based on stimuli-responsive systems. Here we present an anisotropic supramolecular gel of gamma-cyclodextrin and a simple azo dye in which physical gelation is completed through specific host?Cguest interaction. The obtained hydrogel exhibits respective morphological transitions based on supramolecular assembly and dissociation, leading to either precipitation or a sol-to-gel transition. It can identify different classes of metal ions, and, among them, naked-eye differentiation of lead ion is possible due to the coordination-induced unthreading of dye molecules. Gel-to-sol transitions can also be realized using chromium ions as a denaturing reagent. Accompanying structural changes were identified by various characterization techniques, including 2D-ROESY, HR-MAS, UV?CVisible absorption, small-angle X-ray scattering, and induced circular dichroism measurements. The hydrogel properties discussed here will be useful in analytical applications such as metal ion sensing and removal applications.     

Controlling the morphology of metal-promoted higher ordered assemblies of collagen peptides with varied core lengths

Self-assembling peptides have become an important subclass of next-generation biomaterials. In particular, materials that mimic the properties of collagen have received considerable attention due to the unique properties of natural collagen. Previous peptide-based designs have been successful in generating structures with morphological properties that were primarily determined by the type of self-assembling mechanism. Herein we demonstrate the metal ion-promoted, supramolecular assembly of collagen-based peptide triple helices into distinct morphologies that are controlled by defining the number of Pro-Hyp-Gly repeating units. We synthesized and characterized collagen-based peptides that incorporated either 5, 7, 9, or 11 Pro-Hyp-Gly repeating units. We found that the number of repeating units, and the resulting stability of the collagen triple helix, is intimately linked with the types of assemblies formed. For instance, collagen peptides that did not form a stable triple helix, such as NCoH5, did not participate in supramolecular assembly with added metal ions. Collagen peptides that formed stable triple helices, such as NCoH11, resulted in microsaddle structures with metal-promoted assembly, whereas a highly cross-linked, three-dimensional mesh formed with NCoH7, albeit at a higher metal ion concentration. These data provide evidence that triple helix formation is required for efficient metal-triggered assembly to the observed microstructures.     

Effects of transition metal ion coordination on the collision-induced dissociation of polyalanines

Transition metal-polyalanine complexes were analyzed in a high-capacity quadrupole ion trap after electrospray ionization. Polyalanines have no polar amino acid side chains to coordinate metal ions, thus allowing the effects metal ion interaction with the peptide backbone to be explored. Positive mode mass spectra produced from peptides mixed with salts of the first row transition metals Cr(III), Fe(II), Fe(III), Co(II), Ni(II), Cu(I), and Cu(II) yield singly and doubly charged metallated ions. These precursor ions undergo collision-induced dissociation (CID) to give almost exclusively metallated N-terminal product ions whose types and relative abundances depend on the identity of the transition metal. For example, Cr(III)-cationized peptides yield CID spectra that are complex and have several neutral losses, whereas Fe(III)-cationized peptides dissociate to give intense non-metallated products. The addition of Cu(II) shows the most promise for sequencing. Spectra obtained from the CID of singly and doubly charged Cu-heptaalanine ions, [M + Cu - H](+) and [M + Cu](2+) , are complimentary and together provide cleavage at every residue and no neutral losses. (This contrasts with [M + H](+) of heptaalanine, where CID does not provide backbone ions to sequence the first three residues.) Transition metal cationization produces abundant metallated a-ions by CID, unlike protonated peptides that produce primarily b- and y-ions. The prominence of metallated a-ions is interesting because they do not always form from b-ions. Tandem mass spectrometry on metallated (Met = metal) a- and b-ions indicate that [b(n) + Met - H](2+) lose CO to form [a(n) + Met - H](2+), mimicking protonated structures. In contrast, [a(n) + Met - H](2+) eliminate an amino acid residue to form [a(n-1) + Met - H](2+), which may be useful in sequencing.     

Metallacyclopeptides: artificial analogues of naturally occurring peptides

Naturally occurring metalloproteins contain metal ions either to introduce a special reactivity or to stabilize a peptide structure. Since the early 1990s, chemists have been trying to use metal coordination for the fixation of short artificial peptides in well-defined cyclic structures. In this tutorial review a survey of the general approaches towards metallacyclopeptides as small cyclic peptide derivatives or as a part of a bigger alpha-helix (or beta-sheet) structure is given. In three case studies it is shown how naturally occurring compounds can be mimicked by metal coordination to non-natural peptide derivatives.     

Synthetic metal-binding protein surface domains for metal ion-dependent interaction chromatography. II. Immobilization of synthetic metal-binding peptides from metal ion transport proteins as model bioactive protein surface domains.

This preliminary investigation tests the premise that biologically relevant (1) peptide-metal ion interactions, and (2) metal ion-dependent macromolecular recognition events (e.g., peptide-peptide interactions) may be modeled by biomimetic affinity chromatography. Divinylsulfone-activated agarose (6%) was used to immobilize three different synthetic peptides representing metal-binding protein surface domains from the human plasma metal transport protein histidine-rich glycoprotein (HRG). The synthetic peptides represented 1-3 multiple repeat units of the 5-residue sequence (Gly-His-His-Pro-His) found in the C-terminal of HRG. By frontal analyses, immobilized HRG peptides of the type (GHHPH)nG, where n = 1-3, were each found to have a similar binding capacity for both Cu(II) ions and Zn(II) ions (31-38 mumol/ml gel). The metal ion-dependent interaction of a variety of model peptides with each of the immobilized HRG peptide affinity columns demonstrated differences in selectivity despite the similar internal sequence homology and metal ion binding capacity. The immobilized 11-residue HRG peptide was loaded with Cu(II) ions and used to demonstrate selective adsorption and isolation of proteins from human plasma. These results suggest that immobilized metal-binding peptides selected from known solvent-exposed protein surface metal-binding domains may be useful model systems to evaluate the specificity of biologically relevant metal ion-dependent interaction and transfer events in vitro.     

Non-covalent interactions of alkali metal cations with singly charged tryptic peptides

The complexes formed by alkali metal cations (Cat(+) = Li(+), Na(+), K(+), Rb(+)) and singly charged tryptic peptides were investigated by combining results from the low-energy collision-induced dissociation (CID) and ion mobility experiments with molecular dynamics and density functional theory calculations. The structure and reactivity of [M + H + Cat](2+) tryptic peptides is greatly influenced by charge repulsion as well as the ability of the peptide to solvate charge points. Charge separation between fragment ions occurs upon dissociation, i.e. b ions tend to be alkali metal cationised while y ions are protonated, suggesting the location of the cation towards the peptide N-terminus. The low-energy dissociation channels were found to be strongly dependant on the cation size. Complexes containing smaller cations (Li(+) or Na(+)) dissociate predominantly by sequence-specific cleavages, whereas the main process for complexes containing larger cations (Rb(+)) is cation expulsion and formation of [M + H](+). The obtained structural data might suggest a relationship between the peptide primary structure and the nature of the cation coordination shell. Peptides with a significant number of side chain carbonyl oxygens provide good charge solvation without the need for involving peptide bond carbonyl groups and thus forming a tight globular structure. However, due to the lack of the conformational flexibility which would allow effective solvation of both charges (the cation and the proton) peptides with seven or less amino acids are unable to form sufficiently abundant [M + H + Cat](2+) ion. Finally, the fact that [M + H + Cat](2+) peptides dissociate similarly as [M + H](+) (via sequence-specific cleavages, however, with the additional formation of alkali metal cationised b ions) offers a way for generating the low-energy CID spectra of 'singly charged' tryptic peptides.     

Copper(II)‐Mediated Self‐Assembly of Hairpin Peptides and Templated Synthesis of CuS Nanowires

The self‐assembly of peptides and proteins under well‐controlled conditions underlies important nanostructuring processes that could be harnessed in practical applications. Herein, the synthesis of a new hairpin peptide containing four histidine residues is reported and the self‐assembly process mediated by metal ions is explored. The work involves the combined use of circular dichroism, NMR spectroscopy, UV/Vis spectroscopy, AFM, and TEM to follow the structural and morphological details of the metal‐coordination‐mediated folding and self‐assembly of the peptide. The results indicate that by forming a tetragonal coordination geometry with four histidine residues, copper(II) ions selectively trigger the peptide to fold and then self‐assemble into nanofibrils. Furthermore, the copper(II)‐bound nanofibrils template the synthesis of CuS nanowires, which display a near‐infrared laser‐induced thermal effect.