Syntheses of biotinylated and dethiobiotinylated insulins

The 600-MHz proton spectrum of dethiobiotin (prepared from d-biotin with Raney nickel) was measured in order to gain information pertaining to its stereochemical homogeneity. The spectrum demonstrated clearly that the material is a 6:1 mixture of two stereoisomers. The cis compound, corresponding to the stereochemistry of d-biotin, is the major isomer. Two biotinyl- and two dethiobiotinylinsulins were prepared in which the distance between the biotins and insulin was varied by interposition of spacer arms. The synthesis of these compounds involved repeated N-hydroxysuccinimido ester condensations. Biotin N-hydroxysuccinimido ester, dethiobiotin N-hydroxysuccinimido ester, 6-aminohexanoic acid, and N-[3-[(3-aminopropyl)carboxyamino]-propyl]succinamic acid N-tert-butyl ester served as the building blocks for the spacers. The latter compound was prepared from N-[3-[(3-aminopropyl)amino]propyl]succinamic acid sulfate by the use of a selective amino-protecting method based on the differential stability toward acid of citraconyl and tert-butoxycarbonyl amino-protecting groups. The structure of N-[3-[(3-aminopropyl)amino]propyl]succinamic acid sulfate was established unequivocally by X-ray diffraction. The attachment of the biotinylated spacers to the insulin was exclusively at the N alpha, B1 position. Homogeneity of the final products as well as of the intermediates used in their synthesis was established by thin-layer chromatography, by high-pressure liquid chromatography, and in most instances by elemental analysis. The ratio of 6-aminohexanoic acid to lysine in hydrolysates of the insulin derivatives was in agreement with theory. The insulin derivatives were required for a study on the effect of avidin on their ability to interact with insulin receptors on rat epididymal adipocytes, which is described in the accompanying paper.

Saccharomyces kluyveri mannoprotein mutants

Saccharomyces kluyveri cells were mutagenized with ethylmethane sulfonate and, after the cells had grown a few divisions to express any altered cell-surface antigenic structure, the culture was treated with rabbit antiserum directed against the wild type cells in order to enrich for mutants that failed to precipitate with the serum. Several mutant clones were obtained that proved to be altered in the carbohydrate component of the cell-wall mannoprotein. Whereas the wild type strain produces mannoprotein with carbohydrate side chains up to 8 mannose units in length (Zhang, W.-J., and Ballou, C. E. (1981) J. Biol. Chem. 256, 10073-10079), one of the mutants (designated mnn1) has side chains no longer than 3 mannoses. From a comparison of the carbohydrate structures of the mutant and wild type mannoproteins by beta-elimination, acetolysis, and methylation, it appears that this mutant is unable to add mannose in alpha 1 leads to 3 linkage to the alpha 1 leads to 2-linked di- and trisaccharide side chains, thus preventing elongation and branching of the chains that occur in the wild type. Another mutant, designated mnn2, was unable to make the octasaccharide chain, whereas a third class made oligosaccharides of all sizes but did so in ratios that differed from the wild type. These three classes of mutants involve different loci because they complemented each other in the heterozygous diploids.

Carbohydrate chains on yeast carboxypeptidase Y are phosphorylated

Carboxypeptidase Y, a vacuolar enzyme from Saccharomyces cerevisiae, was digested with endo-beta-N-acetyl-D-glucosaminidase H to release the four oligosaccharide chains that are linked to asparagine in the glycoprotein. The oligosaccharides were fractionated into a neutral and acidic component, and the latter proved to phosphorylated. From its gel filtration pattern, the neutral fraction was shown to be a mixture of at least four homologs, the smallest of which had a proton NMR spectrum almost identical to that given by an IgM oligosaccharide with eight mannoses and one N-acetylglucosamine [Cohen, R. E. & Ballou, C. E. (1980) Biochemistry 19, 4345--4358]. The yeast oligosaccharide has one additional mannose unit in an alpha 1 leads to 3 or alpha 1 leads to 6 linkage, whereas the larger homologs appear to have two, three, and four more mannose units. One phosphorylated oligosaccharides with a mannose/phosphate ratio of 12.5 was reduced with NaB3H4 and then subjected to mild acid hydrolysis. This released mannose and mannobiose that were glycosidically linked to the phosphate group, whereas complete acid hydrolysis yielded D-mannose 6-phosphate. The recovered oligosaccharide phosphomonoester, which contained 11 or 12 mannose units, was digested exhaustively with alpha-mannosidase, and the product of this reaction was treated with alkaline phosphatase, which yielded radioactive Man3GlcNAcH2. These results suggest that the mannosidase-resistant phosphorylated oligosaccharide has the structure Man leads to P leads to 6 alpha Man leads to alpha Man leads to 6 beta Man leads to 4GlcNAcH2, in which some of the phosphate groups are substituted with mannobiose instead of mannose. A second phosphorylated oligosaccharide with a mannose/phosphate ratio of 6.5 probably contains two phosphodiester groups, but its structure has not been investigated in detail.