基于非天然氨基酸的蛋白质生物正交标记

生物正交化学反应正日益成为在活体内对生物大分子进行特异标记的一种有效方法. 最近涌现出的一个突出的例子是将金属钯催化的碳碳偶联反应这一在有机合成领域具有里程碑意义的反应拓展到生物大分子的标记上. 在活细胞上进行生物正交反应的一个先决条件是需要将参与这类反应的正交官能团特异地引入到目标生物大分子当中. 遗传密码子拓展技术是将多种生物正交活性基团引入到蛋白质当中的一种先进的手段; 最近发展出的基于吡咯赖氨酸氨酰合成酶和tRNA的体系能够将携带有生物正交官能团的非天然氨基酸有效地引入到原核生物、真核生物, 甚至是动物体内的蛋白质上. 在这一展望中, 我们首先介绍在生物正交反应和遗传密码子拓展这两个领域内的研究前沿与进展. 接着我们将讨论将这些新发展的研究工具, 尤其是基于钯催化的生物正交反应和基于吡咯赖氨酸氨酰合成酶的遗传密码子拓展技术, 应用于标记和修饰哺乳动物细胞蛋白质上的优势和诱人前景. 生物相兼容性更好的正交反应和更为灵活的非天然氨基酸引入技术必将有力地增强和拓宽人们在活细胞环境下特异操纵蛋白质的能力.     

非天然氨基酸引入法制备含有新型赖氨酸翻译后修饰蛋白质

近年来多种天然蛋白质中赖氨酸翻译后修饰被逐渐发现。这些翻译后修饰在蛋白质组中广泛存在,对染色体结构和基因转录表达功能具有重要的调控作用。然而,获得足量的具有特定翻译后修饰的蛋白质并非易事,发展制备方法对于后续表观遗传学研究极为重要。讨论了利用非天然氨基酸引入的手段制备含有这些新型赖氨酸翻译后修饰的蛋白。     

基于天然氨基酸的蛋白质修饰

基于天然氨基酸的蛋白质修饰种类繁多,由于在不同的氨基酸上所进行的修饰会对蛋白质的结构和功能产生不同的影响,所以科学家们一直在探索基于天然氨基酸特异的蛋白质修饰策略。本文主要以半胱氨酸、酪氨酸和蛋白质氮端特异修饰为例,简要回顾目前基于天然氨基酸的蛋白质化学的相关工作。     

氨基酸氧化酶催化合成非天然手性氨基酸研究进展

<正>非天然手性氨基酸是已经上市的和正在研发的手性药物、手性农药和手性食品添加剂的关键中间体[1-2].随着相关产业的发展,非天然手性氨基酸的市场需求与日俱增.非天然手性氨基酸不能像天然L-氨基酸一样采用发酵法生产,主要制备方法包括化学法和生物法.化学法包括化学不对称合成法和化学拆分法.化学不对称合成法采用价格昂贵的手性源、手性助剂或手性金属催化剂.化学拆分法采用手性酸为拆分剂,经历与消旋氨基酸成盐、解     

固定化D-氨基酸氧化酶催化DL-氨基酸去消旋化制备非天然L-氨基酸

在过氧化氢酶和氧气存在下,固定化D-氨基酸氧化酶(D-AAO)对映选择性催化DL-氨基酸中的D-对映体氧化脱氨为相应酮酸,L-对映体保留.研究了D-AAO的底物特异性并对反应条件进行了优化.结果表明:D-AAO具有较宽的底物谱,能够催化疏水性α-氨基酸的D-对映体氧化脱氨.在最优反应条件下,D-AAO催化DL-2-氨基丁酸、DL-2-氨基戊酸去消旋化,L-2-氨基丁酸、L-2-氨基戊酸的收率分别为48%和47%,ee分别为99.5%和99.8%.进一步地利用Pd-C/HCOONH4催化氧化脱氨过程中产生的亚氨基酸原位还原,有效提高了L-2-氨基丁酸、L-2-氨基戊酸的收率并保持高的光学纯度.     

高效液相色谱法测定非天然氨基酸的光学纯度

 以（1- 氟-2,4-二硝基苯基）-5-L-缬氨 酰胺为手性试剂、反相高效液相色谱法测定非天然氨基酸的光学 纯度。梯度洗脱,流动相A：含体积分数为0.1％的三氟乙酸的乙腈,流动相B：体积分 数为0.1％的三氟乙酸水溶液。L-和D-对映体得到良好分离。准确测定了25种非天然 氨基酸L-和D-对映体的光学纯度。     

应用Arndt-Eistert反应合成手性非天然N-Fmoc-β-氨基酸（Ⅲ）

以重氮甲烷为重氮化试剂，以非天然N—Fmoc—α—氨基酸为原料，成功地运用Amdt—Eistert反应，通过两步反应，高效快捷地合成了8个对应的同系物N—Fmoc—β—氨基酸。     

氨基酸与蛋白质体系热容研究

氨基酸与蛋白质都是生命现象和分子生物学研究的最基本和最重要的研究对象.利用热力学方法,特别是从热容的角度出发对其研究,对深入了解蛋白质的折叠与伸展、变性机理、稳定性及生命体的新陈代谢等问题均具有一定的意义.近年来,研究者们对蛋白质或氨基酸体系的热容研究做了大量工作,取得了很大进展,本文对此进行了概述。     

含有络合功能基的非天然氨基酸的设计、合成及在生物活性肽中的应用

设计合成了一类侧链带有络合基团的非天然氨基酸, 即侧链带有N,N-二羧甲基氨甲基、N,N-二酰胺甲基氨甲基和N,N-二羟乙基氨甲基的苯丙氨酸衍生物, 并将这类非天然氨基酸用于促性腺激素释放激素(LHRH)类似物的固相合成. 高效液相色谱分析结果表明, 粗肽的纯度较好, 易于纯化; 用电喷雾质谱测定了多肽的分子量. 这些非天然氨基酸可作为其它肽类药物合成的构建单元.     

应用Arndt-Eistert 反应合成手性非天然N-Fmoc-β-氨基酸(III)

以重氮甲烷为重氮化试剂,以非天然N-Fmoc-α-氨基酸为原料,成功地运用Arndt-Eistert 反应,通过两步反应,高效快捷地合成了8个对应的同系物N-Fmoc-β-氨基酸.     

Applications of Unnatural Amino Acids in Protease Probes

Since proteases are involved in a wide range of physiological and disease states, the development of novel tools for imaging proteolytic enzyme activity is attracting increasing interest from scientists. Peptide substrates containing proteinogenic amino acids are often the first line of defining enzyme specificity. This Minireview outlines examples of major recent advances in probing proteases using unnatural amino acid residues, which greatly expands the possibilities for designing substrate probes and inhibitory activity‐based probes. This approach already yielded innovative probes that selectively target only one active protease within the group of enzymes exhibiting similar specificity both in cellular assays and in bioimaging research.     

Biocatalysis with Unnatural Amino Acids: Enzymology Meets Xenobiology

The goal of xenobiology is to design biological systems endowed with unusual biochemical functions, whereas enzymology concerns the study of enzymes, the workhorses of biocatalysis. Biocatalysis employs enzymes and organisms to perform useful biotransformations in synthetic chemistry and biotechnology. During the past few years, the effects of incorporating noncanonical amino acids (ncAAs) into enzymes with potential applications in biocatalysis have been increasingly investigated. In this Review, we provide an overview of the effects of new chemical functionalities that have been introduced into proteins to improve various facets of enzymatic catalysis. We also discuss future research avenues that will complement unnatural mutagenesis with standard protein engineering to produce novel and versatile biocatalysts with applications in synthetic organic chemistry and biotechnology.     

Proximity‐Enabled Protein Crosslinking through Genetically Encoding Haloalkane Unnatural Amino Acids

The selective generation of covalent bonds between and within proteins would provide new avenues for studying protein function and engineering proteins with new properties. New covalent bonds were genetically introduced into proteins by enabling an unnatural amino acid (Uaa) to selectively react with a proximal natural residue. This proximity‐enabled bioreactivity was expanded to a series of haloalkane Uaas. Orthogonal tRNA/synthetase pairs were evolved to incorporate these Uaas, which only form a covalent thioether bond with cysteine when positioned in close proximity. By using the Uaa and cysteine, spontaneous covalent bond formation was demonstrated between an affibody and its substrate Z protein, thereby leading to irreversible binding, and within the affibody to increase its thermostability. This strategy of proximity‐enabled protein crosslinking (PEPC) may be generally expanded to target different natural amino acids, thus providing diversity and flexibility in covalent bond formation for protein research and protein engineering.     

Front Cover: Katritzky Salts for the Synthesis of Unnatural Amino Acids and Late-Stage Functionalization of Peptides (Eur. J. Org. Chem. 12/2023)

Peptide drug discovery often benefits from the large structural diversity permitted by unnatural amino acids (UAAs). Indeed, numerous approved peptide drugs include UAAs in their sequences. Therefore, innovative chemical approaches either to synthesize UAAs or to allow late-stage functionalization of peptides are emerging themes in peptide drug discovery. Thanks to the recent advances in deaminative strategies using alkylpyridiniums salts, often referred to as Katritzky salts, a variety of radical alkylation methods have been developed. In recent years the use of Katritzky salts have become popular in peptide chemistry due to their ease of preparation from a primary amine, which is a predominant functional group in amino acids. This review highlights the progress that has been made by using Katritzky salts in the synthesis of UAAs, late-stage peptide functionalization, and peptide macrocyclization.     

Asymmetric Synthesis of Unnatural Amino Acids and Tamsulosin Chiral Intermediate

An efficient and enantioselective hydrogenation of N-acetylamino phenyl acrylic acids was successfully developed by using ruthenium catalyst. This methodology is important in the field of pharmaceuticals and provides a new process for the preparation of unnatural amino acids and tamsulosin chiral intermediate.

[Supplementary materials are available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of Synthetic Communications® for the following free supplemental resource: Full experimental and spectral details.]     

Orchestrating the Biosynthesis of an Unnatural Pyrrolysine Amino Acid for Its Direct Incorporation into Proteins Inside Living Cells

We here report the construction of an E. coli expression system able to manufacture an unnatural amino acid by artificial biosynthesis. This can be orchestrated with incorporation into protein by amber stop codon suppression inside a living cell. In our case an alkyne‐bearing pyrrolysine amino acid was biosynthesized and incorporated site‐specifically allowing orthogonal double protein labeling.