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The recent work on a variety of family 18 chitonolytic enzymes has yielded important data concerning the structure, substrate-binding, catalysis, inhibitor-binding and even dynamics. These data have been useful in helping to better understand the roles of various types of chitinases in chitin hydrolysis, to rationally engineer the properties of these enzymes, thus making them more suitable as biocatalysts, and to study and understand the effectiveness of natural and designed chitinase inhibitors, which may be of medical interest. On the other hand, the recent work on ChiB shows that catalysis in family 18 chitinases is a highly complicated process, involving larger parts of the enzyme and dynamics. Thus, despite recent discoveries, there is still a lot more to discover about how these enzyme work.
From the roots of the African plant Bulbine frutescens (Asphodelaceae), two unprecedented novel dimeric phenylanthraquinones, named joziknipholones A and B, possessing axial and centrochirality, were isolated, together with six known compounds. Structural elucidation of the new metabolites was achieved by spectroscopic and chiroptical methods, by reductive cleavage of the central bond between the monomeric phenylanthraquinone and -anthrone portions with sodium dithionite, and by quantum chemical CD calculations. Based on the recently revised absolute axial configuration of the parent phenylanthraquinones, knipholone and knipholone anthrone, the new dimers were attributed to possess the P- configuration (i.e., with the acetyl portions below the anthraquinone plane) at both axes in the case of joziknipholone A, whereas in joziknipholone B, the knipholone part was found to be M-configured. Joziknipholones A and B are active against the chloroquine resistant strain K1 of the malaria pathogen, Plasmodium falciparum, and show moderate activity against murine leukemic lymphoma L5178y cells.
Two sesquiterpenes, corymbolone and mustakone, isolated from the chloroform extract of the rhizomes of Cyperus articulatus, exhibited significant anti-plasmodial properties. Mustakone was approximately ten times more active than corymbolone against the sensitive strains of the Plasmodium falciparum.
The use of CO2 as a massive and polarizable drift gas is shown to greatly improve peak-to-peak resolution (Rp-p), as compared with N2, for the separation of disaccharides in a Synapt G2 traveling wave ion mobility cell. Near or baseline Rp-p was achieved for three pairs of sodiated molecules of disaccharide isomers, that is, cellobiose and sucrose (Rp-p?=?0.76), maltose and sucrose (Rp-p?=?1.04), and maltose and lactose (Rp-p?=?0.74). Ion mobility mass spectrometry using CO2 as the drift gas offers therefore an attractive alternative for fast and efficient separation of isomeric disaccharides.
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.
A new synthesis of 9 alpha-hydroxy-alpha-agarofuran (6 alpha) is described, using a microbiological hydroxylation alpha-agarofuran (5) as the key reaction. The stereochemistry of the biohydroxylation was determined on the basis of a NOESY-experiment and GIAO calculations at the B3LYP/cc-pVDZ level. A strong gamma-effect was observed at C15 of the agarofuran ring which was correctly predicted by the GIAO-B3LYP calculations
The antibacterial activities of ethyl acetate, methanol and aqueous extracts of the stem bark of Dichrostachys cinerea and the roots of Parkia bicolor have been evaluated. Ethyl acetate extracts have been investigated, studies that led to a series of known compounds, amongst which many are reported here for the very first time from both the species
A review on the chem. and biochem. of chitin and the chem. and application of chitosan. The following topics were discussed: structure of chitin and chitosan; occurrence and physiol. functions of chitin; detection of chitin in animals and anal. of chitin and chitosan; biosynthesis and biodegrdn. of chitin in animals; prodn. of chitin and chitosan; properties of chitin and chitosan; and applications of chitin and chitosan.