Silyl protection in the solid-phase synthesis of N-linked glycopeptides. Preparation of glycosylated fluorogenic substrates for subtilisins

Activatable Optical Probes for the Detection of Enzymes

The early detection of many human diseases is crucial if they are to be treated successfully. Therefore, the development of imaging techniques that can facilitate early detection of disease is of high importance. Changes in the levels of enzyme expression are known to occur in many diseases, making their accurate detection at low concentrations an area of considerable active research. Activatable fluorescent probes show immense promise in this area. If properly designed they should exhibit no signal until they interact with their target enzyme, reducing the level of background fluorescence and potentially endowing them with greater sensitivity. The mechanisms of fluorescence changes in activatable probes vary. This review aims to survey the field of activatable probes, focusing on their mechanisms of action as well as illustrating some of the in vitro and in vivo settings in which they have been employed.

Use of fluorobenzoyl protective groups in synthesis of glycopeptides: beta-elimination of O-linked carbohydrates is suppressed

Fluorobenzoyl groups have been investigated as alternatives to acetyl and benzoyl protective groups in carbohydrate and glycopeptide synthesis. D-Glucose and lactose were protected with different fluorobenzoyl groups and then converted into glycosyl bromides in high yields (>80% over two steps). Glycosylation of protected derivatives of serine with these donors gave 1,2-trans glycosides in good yields (approximately 60--70%) and excellent stereoselectivity without formation of ortho esters. The resulting glycosylated amino acid building blocks were then used in solid-phase synthesis of two model O-linked glycopeptides known to be unusually sensitive to beta-elimination on base-catalyzed deacylation. When either a 3-fluoro- or a 2,5-difluorobenzoyl group was used for protection of each of the two model glycopeptides the extent of beta-elimination decreased from 80% to 10% and from 50% to 0%, respectively, as compared to when using the ordinary benzoyl group. Fluorobenzoyl groups thus combine the advantages of the benzoyl group in formation of glycosidic bonds (i.e., high stereoselectivity and low levels of ortho ester formation) with the ease of removal characteristic of the acetyl group.

Glycopeptide synthesis and the effects of glycosylation on protein structure and activity

Despite the omnipresence of protein glycosylation in nature, little is known about how the attachment of carbohydrates affects peptide and protein activity. One reason is the lack of a straightforward method to access biologically relevant glycopeptides and glycoproteins. The isolation of homogeneous glycopeptides from natural sources is complicated by the heterogeneity of naturally occuring glycoproteins. It is chemical and chemoenzymatic synthesis that is meeting the challenge to solve this availability problem, thus playing a key role for the advancement of glycobiology. The current art of glycopeptide synthesis, albeit far from being routine, has reached a level of maturity that allows for the access to homogeneous and pure material for biological and medicinal research. Even the ambitious goal of the total synthesis of an entire glycoprotein is within reach. It is demonstrated that with the help of synthetic glycopeptides the effects of glycosylation on protein structure and function can be studied in molecular detail. For example, in immunology, synthetic (tumour-specific) glycopeptides can be used as immunogens to elicit a tumour-cell-specific immune response. Again, synthetic glycopeptides are an invaluable tool to determine the fine specificity of the immune response that can be mediated by both carbohydrate-specific B and T cells. Furthermore, selected examples for the use of synthetic glycopeptides as ligands of carbohydrate-binding proteins and as enzyme substrates or inhibitors are presented.

Chromogenic and fluorogenic glycosylated and acetylglycosylated peptides as substrates for serine, thiol and aspartyl proteases

We synthesized short chromogenic peptidyl-Arg-p-nitroanilides containing either (Galbeta)Ser or (Glcalpha,beta)Tyr at P2 or P3 sites as well as O-acetylated sugar moieties and studied their hydrolysis by bovine trypsin, papain, human tissue kallikrein and rat tonin. For comparison, the susceptibility to these enzymes of Acetyl-X-Arg-pNa and Acetyl-X-Phe-Arg-pNa series, in which X was Ala, Phe, Gln and Asn were examined. We also synthesized internally quenched fluorescent peptides with the amino acid sequence Phe8-His-Leu-Val-Ile-His-Asn14 of human angiotensinogen, in which [GlcNAcbeta]Asn was introduced before Phe8 and/or after His13 and ortho-aminobenzoic acid (Abz) and N-[2-, 4-dinitrophenyl]-ethylenediamine (EDDnp) were attached at N- and C-terminal ends as a donor/receptor fluorescent pair. These peptides were examined as substrates for human renin, human cathepsin D and porcine pepsin. The chromogenic substrates with hydrophilic sugar moiety increased their susceptibility to trypsin, tissue kallikrein and rat tonin. For papain, the effect of sugar depends on its position in the substrate, namely, at P3 it is unfavorable, in contrast to the P2 position that resulted in increasing affinity, as demonstrated by the higher inhibitory activity of Ac-(Gal3)Ser-Arg-pNa in comparison to Ac-Ser-Arg-pNa, and by the hydrolysis of Ac-(Glcalpha,beta)Tyr-Arg-pNa. On the other hand, the acetylation of sugar hydroxyl groups improved hydrolysis of the susceptible peptides to all enzymes, except tonin. The P'4 glycosylated peptide [Abz-F-H-L-V-I-H-(GIcNAcbeta)N-E-EDDnp], that corresponds to one of the natural glycosylation sites of angiotensinogen, was shown to be the only glycosylated substrate susceptible to human renin, and was hydrolysed with lower K(m) and higher k(cat) values than the same peptide without the sugar moiety. Human cathepsin D and porcine pepsin are more tolerant to substrate glycosylation, hydrolysing both the P'4 and P4 glycosylated substrates.

Synthetic methods of glycopeptide assembly, and biological analysis of glycopeptide products

The technology of glycopeptide synthesis has recently developed into a fully mature science capable of creating diverse glycopeptides of biological interest, even in combinatorial displays. This has allowed biochemists to investigate substrate specificity in the biosynthetic processing and immunology of various protein glycoforms. The construction of all the mucin core structures and a variety of cancer-related glycopeptides has facilitated detailed analysis of the interaction between MHC-bound glycopeptides and T cell receptors. Novel dendritic neoglycopeptide ligands have been shown to demonstrate high affinity for carbohydrate receptors and these interactions are highly dendrimer specific. Large complex N-linked oligosaccharides have been introduced into glycopeptides using synthetic or chemoenzymatic procedures, both methods affording pure glycopeptides corresponding to a single glycoform in preparative quantities. The improved availability of glycosyl transferases has led to increased use of chemoenzymatic synthesis. Chemical ligation has been introduced as a method of attaching glycans to peptide templates. Combinatorial synthesis and the analysis of resin-bound glycopeptide libraries have been successfully carried out by applying the ladder synthesis principle. Direct quantitative glycosylation of peptide templates on solid phase has paved the way for the synthesis of templated glycopeptide mixtures as libraries of libraries.

Multiple column synthesis of a library of T-cell stimulating Tn-antigenic glycopeptide analogues for the molecular characterization of T-cell-glycan specificity

A series of peptides and glycopeptides derived by amino acid and glycosyl amino acid scans through the self peptide from CBA/J mouse haemoglobin Hb (67-76). VITAFNEGLK, was synthesized by multiple column peptide synthesis (MCPS). Investigation of glycopeptide binding to the mouse major histocompatibility class II molecule Ek showed that glycans in position 72 did not interfere with the binding to Ek. Immunization experiments revealed that glycopeptides with the glycan in position 72 were immunogenic. Therefore a series of N-linked and O-linked glycopeptides with the glycan attached in the position 72 either to serine, threonine or asparagine was synthesized by MCPS. The glycan structure was furthermore varied with respect to monosaccharide component, size of oligosaccharide, anomer configuration and stereochemistry of essential hydroxyl groups in order to investigate the specificity of the interaction with the T-cell receptor. Easy synthesis of ready to use Ser and Thr building blocks corresponding to mucin core 1, the Tn-antigen and its beta-anomer were developed using trichloroacetimidates as glycosyl donors and reduction with in situ acetylation of the azide containing glycosylation products. Synthesis of an alpha-linked GlcNAc-Thr building block was achieved by glycosylation of Fmoc-Thr-OPip with 2-azido-2-deoxy-3,4,6-tri-O-acetyl-D-glycopyranosyl trichloroacetimidate as a glycosyl donor. Other building blocks were obtained by previously described procedures.