Addition of thiols to the double bond of dipeptide C-terminal dehydroalanine as a source of new inhibitors of cathepsin C

Addition of thiols to double bond of glycyl-dehydroalanine and phenyl-dehydroalanine esters provided micromolar inhibitors of cathepsin C. The structure-activity studies indicated that dipeptides containing N-terminal phenylalanine exhibit higher affinity towards the enzyme. A series of C-terminal S-substituted cysteines are responsible for varying interaction with S1 binding pocket of cathepsin C. Depending on diastereomer these compounds most likely act as slowly reacting substrates or competitive inhibitors. This was proved by TLC analysis of the medium in which interaction of methyl (S)-phenylalanyl-(R,S)-(S-adamantyl)cysteinate (7i) with the enzyme was studied. Molecular modeling enabled to establish their mode of binding showed that S2 pocket is long and narrow and accommodates phenyl group of phenylalanine while significantly spacious sites located at the surface of the enzyme (one of them being S1 pocket) bind the adamantyl moiety oriented in different direction for each stereoisomer. Finally replacement of carboxymethyl moiety of methyl (S)-phenylalanyl-(R,S)-(S-phenyl)cysteinate (7c) with nitrile group provided about 650-times more potent inhibitor of cathepsin C indicating that the studied C-terminal S-substituted cysteines are good activity probes for S1 binding pocket of this enzyme.

Effective covalent immobilization of quinone and aptamer onto a gold electrode via thiol addition for sensitive and selective protein biosensing

Effective covalent immobilization of quinone and aptamer onto a gold electrode via thiol addition (a Michael addition) for sensitive and selective protein (with thrombin as the model) biosensing is reported, with a detection limit down to 20 fM for thrombin. Briefly, the thiol addition reaction of a gold electrode-supported 1,6-hexanedithiol (HDT) with p-benzoquinone (BQ) yielded BQ-HDT/Au, and the similar reaction of thiolated thrombin aptamer (TTA) with activated BQ-HDT/Au under 0.3V led to formation of a gold electrode-supported novel electrochemical probe TTA-BQ-HDT/Au. The thus-prepared TTA-BQ-HDT/Au exhibits a pair of well-defined redox peaks of quinone moiety, and the TTA-thrombin interaction can sensitively decrease the electrochemical signal. Herein the thiol addition acts as an effective and convenient binding protocols for aptasensing, and a new method (electrochemical conversion of Michael addition complex for signal generation) for the fabrication of biosensor is presented. The cyclic voltammetry (CV) was used to characterize the film properties. In addition, the proposed amperometric aptasensor exhibits good sensitivity, selectivity, and reproducibility. The aptasensor also has acceptable recovery for detection in complex protein sample.