55443-74-8Relevant articles and documents
Discovery of small molecule protease inhibitors by investigating a widespread human gut bacterial biosynthetic pathway
Schneider, Benjamin A.,Balskus, Emily P.
, p. 3215 - 3230 (2018)
Natural products from the human microbiota may mediate host health and disease. However, discovery of the biosynthetic gene clusters that generate these metabolites has far outpaced identification of the molecules themselves. Here, we used an isolation-independent approach to access the probable products of a nonribosomal peptide synthetase-encoding gene cluster from Ruminococcus bromii, an abundant gut commensal bacterium. By combining bioinformatics with in vitro biochemical characterization of biosynthetic enzymes, we predicted that this pathway likely generates an N-acylated dipeptide aldehyde (ruminopeptin). We then used chemical synthesis to access putative ruminopeptin scaffolds. Several of these compounds inhibited Staphylococcus aureus endoproteinase GluC (SspA/V8 protease). Homologs of this protease are found in gut commensals and opportunistic pathogens as well as human gut metagenomes. Overall, this work reveals the utility of isolation-independent approaches for rapidly accessing bioactive compounds and highlights a potential role for gut microbial natural products in targeting gut microbial proteases.
The urea-dipeptides show stronger H-bonding propensity to nucleate β-sheetlike assembly than natural sequence
Ke, Damei,Zhan, Chuanlang,Li, Xiao,Li, Alexander D.Q.,Yao, Jiannian
experimental part, p. 8269 - 8276 (2009/12/26)
In this article, we report the distinct solution behavior of a set of urea-dipeptides to that of natural sequence. The urea-dipeptides adopt β-folding conformations and form into β-sheetlike assembly in chloroform. Most surprisedly, the urea-dipeptides tend to form interpeptide H-bonding interactions even at a concentration of as low as 0.1 mM, while the natural sequence shows H-bonding propensity at a concentration of about 7 mM, indicating that the urea-dipeptides show much stronger H-bonding propensity to nucleate formation of β-sheetlike assembly than the natural sequence. CD spectra reveal that the investigated urea-dipeptides have two negative CD bands, respectively, around 217 nm and 224 nm, supporting the β-folding conformations and in turn formation of β-sheetlike assembly. The β-sheetlike assembly is also confirmed by the XRD reflections, which give two typical d-spacings of 12.7 and 4.8 A?, respectively, corresponding to stacking periodicity of the β-sheets and the spacing between peptide backbones running orthogonal to the β-sheet axis.
