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Over the past years, family 18 chitinases have been validated as potential targets for the design of drugs against human pathogens that contain or interact with chitin during their normal life cycles. Thus far, only one potent chitinase inhibitor has been described in detail, the pseudotrisaccharide allosamidin. Recently, however, two potent natural-product cyclopentapeptide chitinase inhibitors, argifin and argadin, were reported. Here, we describe high- resoln. crystal structures that reveal the details of the interactions of these cyclopeptides with a family 18 chitinase. The structures are examples of complexes of a carbohydrate-processing enzyme with high-affinity peptide-based inhibitors and show in detail how the peptide backbone and side chains mimic the interactions of the enzyme with chitooligosaccharides. Together with enzymol. characterization, the structures explain why argadin shows an order of magnitude stronger inhibition than allosamidin, whereas argifin shows weaker inhibition. The peptides bind to the chitinase in remarkably different ways, which may explain the differences in inhibition consts. The two complexes provide a basis for structure-based design of potent chitinase inhibitors, accessible by std. peptide chem.
Chitinase B (ChiB) from Serratia marcescens is a family 18 exochitinase whose catalytic domain has a TIM-barrel fold with a tunnel-shaped active site. We have solved structures of three ChiB complexes that reveal details of substrate binding, substrateassisted catalysis, and product displacement. The structure of an inactive ChiB mutant (E144Q) complexed with a pentameric substrate (binding in subsites 22 to 13) shows closure of the ''roof'' of the active site tunnel. It also shows that the sugar in the 21 position is distorted to a boat conformation, thus providing structural evidence in support of a previously proposed catalytic mechanism. The structures of the active enzyme complexed to Allosamidin (an analogue of a proposed reaction intermediate) and of the active enzyme soaked with pentameric substrate show events after cleavage of the glycosidic bond. The latter structure shows reopening of the roof of the active site tunnel and enzyme-assisted product displacement in the 11 and 12 sites, allowing a water molecule to approach the reaction center. Catalysis is accompanied by correlated structural changes in the core of the TIM barrel that involve conserved polar residues whose functions were hitherto unknown. These changes simultaneously contribute to stabilization of the reaction intermediate and alternation of the pKa of the catalytic acid during the catalytic cycle.
In this article, the synthesis of analogs of N,N',N''-triacetylchitotriose in which the central sugar residue was replaced by a succinic acid is presented. Mol. modeling calcns. revealed that the pseudotrisaccharides exist in low energy extended conformations which show similar space filling as N,N',N''-triacetylchitotriose. Of the N,N',N''-triacetylchitotriose pseudosugar analogs tested as chitinase inhibitors, none showed any appreciable competition (numerical data not presented). The conformational anal. along with further synthetic efforts will hopefully lead to more efficient pseudosaccharides as chitinase inhibitors.
The soln.-state conformations of the hevamine inhibitor allosamidin and six potential inhibitor analogs were studied by various NMR spectroscopic techniques and mol. modeling using force field calcns. Detn. solely of the global energy min. conformation was found to be insufficient for consensus with the NMR results, and agreement between the NMR exptl. data and the theor. calcns. was only reached by assessing the structures as population-weighted av. conformers on the basis of Boltzmann distributions derived from the calcd. relative energies. The conformations of the glycosidic linkages in the compds. were found to be similar when the sugar residues were the same, but differences were markedly evident otherwise and also for the various heterocyclic group linkages. The binding of the compds. to hevamine, which may also complex to chitinases in general, was assessed using HMQC, transfer-NOESY, and both 1-D and 2-D satn. transfer difference NMR expts. Under the conditions employed, only allosamidin was implicated to be bound to hevamine, and then only by HMQC with the dipolar coupling-based expts. failing to substantiate the formation of the complex. However, the results are consistent with the biochem. activities of the compds. whereby only allosamidin has been shown to act as a competitive inhibitor.
Based on NMR spectroscopic information about the allosamidin-hevamine complex, ab initio MO calcns. of the ring current effect of the arom. moieties of Trp255, Tyr183 and Tyr6 of hevamine were carried out to investigate the role of these amino acid residues in binding interactions with allosamidin in soln. In addn., the intermol. steric compression effect on the 13C chem. shifts of the allosamizoline carbon atoms and the hydrogen bonding to Glu127 was identified. It can be inferred that the binding forces are strongest in the allosamizoline moiety of allosamidin.
A model system of tanning of a protein matrix within a fibrous structure, such as most commonly found in insect cuticle, was developed, using the cellulose of paper in place of chitin. The paper was impregnated with a tripeptide, DOPA-Gly-Gly, or a protein (BSA) plus catechol and treated with tyrosinase to oxidize the catechol. The resulting material was waterproof and had very high wet strength. If the material was wetted and dried repeatedly its water retention decreased by a factor of at least two.
From the stem bark of Erythrina sacleuxii two new isoflavanones, (R)-5,7-dihydroxy-2',4',5'- trimethoxyisoflavanone (trivial name, (R)-2,3-dihydro-7-demethylrobustigenin) and (R)-5-hydroxy- 2',4',5'-trimethoxy-2'',2''- dimethylpyrano[5'',6'':6,7]isoflavanone (trivial name, (R)-saclenone) were isolated. In addition the known compounds shinpterocarpin, 2,3-dehydrokievitone, abyssinone V, abyssinone V-4'-methyl ether, erythrinasinate and 4'-O-methylsigmoidin B were isolated. The structures were determined on the basis of spectroscopic evidence.