Structural and enzyme activity studies demonstrate that aryl substituted 2,3-butadienamine analogs inactivate Arthrobacter globiformis amine oxidase (AGAO) by chemical derivatization of the 2,4,5-trihydroxyphenylalanine quinone (TPQ) cofactor.

Copper amine oxidases (CAOs) are a family of redox active enzymes containing a 2,4,5-trihydroxyphenylalanine quinone (TPQ) cofactor generated from post translational modification of an active site tyrosine residue. The Arthrobacter globiformis amine oxidase (AGAO) has been widely used as a model to guide the design and development of selective inhibitors of CAOs. In this study, two aryl 2,3-butadienamine analogs, racemic 5-phenoxy-2,3-pentadienylamine (POPDA) and racemic 6-phenyl-2,3-hexadienylamine (PHDA), were synthesized and evaluated as mechanism-based inactivators of AGAO. Crystal structures show that both compounds form a covalent adduct with the amino group of the substrate-reduced TPQ, and that the chemical structures of the rac-PHDA and rac-POPDA modified TPQ differ by the allenic carbon that is attached to the cofactor. A chemical mechanism accounting for the formation of the respective TPQ derivative is proposed. Under steady-state conditions, no recovery of enzyme activity is detected when AGAO pre-treated with rac-PHDA or rac-POPDA is diluted with excess amount of the benzylamine substrate (100-fold K(m)). Comparing the IC(50) values further reveals that the phenoxy substituent in POPDA offers an approximately 4-fold increase in inhibition potency, which can be attributed to a favourable binding interaction between the oxygen atom in the phenoxy group and the active site of AGAO as revealed by crystallographic studies. This hypothesis is corroborated by the observed >3-fold higher partition ratio of PHDA compared to POPDA. Taken together, the results presented in this study reveal the mechanism by which aryl 2,3-butadienamines act as mechanism-based inhibitors of AGAO, and the potency of enzyme inactivation could be fine-tuned by optimizing binding interaction between the aryl substituent and the enzyme active site.

A new crystal form of human vascular adhesion protein 1.

Human vascular adhesion protein 1 (VAP-1) is involved in lymphocyte-endothelial cell adhesion and has been implicated in many human inflammatory diseases. VAP-1 is a member of the copper amine oxidase family of enzymes with a trihydroxyphenylalanine quinone (TPQ) cofactor. Previously characterized crystals of VAP-1 suffered from anisotropy and contained disordered regions; in addition, one form was consistently twinned. In an effort to grow crystals that diffracted to higher resolution for inhibitor-binding studies, a construct with an N-terminal deletion was made and expressed in the Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) glycosylation mutant cell line Lec8. Screening produced crystals that displayed some anisotropy and contained seven molecules per asymmetric unit. These crystals belonged to space group C2, with unit-cell parameters a=394.5, b=115.8, c=179.3 Å, ß=112.3°. The structure was refined to a resolution of 2.9 Å, with Rcryst and Rfree values of 0.250 and 0.286, respectively.

Study of a synthetic human olfactory receptor 17-4: expression and purification from an inducible mammalian cell line.

In order to begin to study the structural and functional mechanisms of olfactory receptors, methods for milligram-scale purification are required. Here we demonstrate the production and expression of a synthetically engineered human olfactory receptor hOR17-4 gene in a stable tetracycline-inducible mammalian cell line (HEK293S). The olfactory receptor gene was fabricated from scratch using PCR-based gene-assembly, which facilitated codon optimization and attachment of a 9-residue bovine rhodopsin affinity tag for detection and purification. Induction of adherent cultures with tetracycline together with sodium butyrate led to hOR17-4 expression levels of approximately 30 microg per 150 mm tissue culture plate. Fos-choline-based detergents proved highly capable of extracting the receptors, and fos-choline-14 (N-tetradecylphosphocholine) was selected for optimal solubilization and subsequent purification. Analysis by SDS-PAGE revealed both monomeric and dimeric receptor forms, as well as higher MW oligomeric species. A two-step purification method of immunoaffinity and size exclusion chromatography was optimized which enabled 0.13 milligrams of hOR17-4 monomer to be obtained at >90% purity. This high purity of hOR17-4 is not only suitable for secondary structural and functional analyses but also for subsequent crystallization trials. Thus, this system demonstrates the feasibility of purifying milligram quantities of the GPCR membrane protein hOR17-4 for fabrication of olfactory receptor-based bionic sensing device.