Traceless enzymatic protein synthesis without ligation sites constraint.

Protein synthesis and semisynthesis offer immense promise for life sciences and have impacted pharmaceutical innovation. The absence of a generally applicable method for traceless peptide conjugation with a flexible choice of junction sites remains a bottleneck for accessing many important synthetic targets, however. Here we introduce the PALME (protein activation and ligation with multiple enzymes) platform designed for sequence-unconstrained synthesis and modification of biomacromolecules. The upstream activating modules accept and process easily accessible synthetic peptides and recombinant proteins, avoiding the challenges associated with preparation and manipulation of activated peptide substrates. Cooperatively, the downstream coupling module provides comprehensive solutions for sequential peptide condensation, cyclization and protein N/C-terminal or internal functionalization. The practical utility of this methodology is demonstrated by synthesizing a series of bioactive targets ranging from pharmaceutical ingredients to synthetically challenging proteins. The modular PALME platform exhibits unprecedentedly broad accessibility for traceless protein synthesis and functionalization, and holds enormous potential to extend the scope of protein chemistry and synthetic biology.

Synthesis of novel 3/5(3,5)-(di)nitropaeonol hydrazone derivatives as nematicidal agents.

Eighteen novel 3/5(3,5)-(di)nitropaeonol hydrazone derivatives were prepared, and their structures well characterized by 1H NMR, HRMS, and mp. Due to the steric hindrance, the substituents on the C = N double bond of all hydrazine compounds (except E/Z = 4/1 for IV-1g, IV-1l, IV-2b, and E/Z = 3/2 for IV-1n, IV-3a) adopted E configuration. Among all compounds, four compounds 2, 4, IV-1j, and IV-1n exhibited potent nematicidal activity than their precursor paeonol, especially 5-nitropaeonol (2) and 3,5-dinitropaeonol (4) displayed the most potent nematicidal activity Heterodera glycines in vivo with LC50 values of 32.3307 and 36.7074 mg/L, respectively.

Synthesis of novel 9R/S-acyloxy derivatives of cinchonidine and cinchonine as insecticidal agents.

Endeavor to discover biorational natural products-based insecticides, two series (27) of novel 9R/S-acyloxy derivatives of cinchonidine and cinchonine were prepared and assessed for their insecticidal activity against Mythimna separata in vivo by the leaf-dipping method at 1 mg/mL. Among all the compounds, especially derivatives 6l and 6o exhibited the best insecticidal activity with final mortality rates of 75.0% and 71.4%, respectively. Overall, a free 9-hydroxyl group is not a prerequisite for insecticidal activity and C9-substitution is well tolerated; the configuration of C8/9 position is important for insecticidal activity, and 9S-configuration is optimal; 6'-OCH3 moiety is not necessary, removal of it is also acceptable. [Formula: see text].

Synthesis, anti-oomycete activity, and SAR studies of paeonol derivatives.

Three series of sulfonate derivatives of paeonol were synthesized and screened in vitro for their anti-oomycete activity against P. capsici, respectively. Among all the compounds, 4m displayed the best promising and pronounced anti-oomycete activity against P. capsici than zoxamide, with the EC50 values of 24.51 and 26.87 mg/L, respectively. The results show that acetyl and 4-OCH3 are two necessary groups. The existence of these two sites is closely related to the anti-oomycete activity. Relatively speaking, hydroxyl group is well tolerated, and the results showed that after modification of hydroxyl group with sulfonyl, the anti-oomycete activity was significantly increased. [Formula: see text].

Synthesis of sulfonate derivatives of carvacrol and thymol as anti-oomycetes agents.

Two series of sulfonate derivatives of carvacrol and thymol were synthesized and screened in vitro for their anti-oomycete activity against Phytophthora capsici, respectively. Among all of 32 derivatives, five compounds 3a, 4a, 4k, 3n, and 4n exhibited more potent anti-oomycete activity against P. capsici with EC50 values of 66.66, 62.94, 68.65, 61.24, and 52.91 mg/L, respectively. This suggested that introduction of different substitutions at the hydroxyl position of 1/2 could have remarkable effect on anti-oomycete activity. Overall, when R1 = isopropyl and R2 = methyl, the anti-oomycete activities of the compounds were higher than that of the corresponding compounds of R1 = methyl and R2 = isopropyl.[Formula: see text].

Sequential amidation of peptide C-termini for improving fragmentation efficiency.

Owing to the poor fragmentation efficiency caused by the lack of a positively charged basic group at the C-termini of peptides, the identification of nontryptic peptides in classical proteomics is known to be less efficient. Particularly, attaching positively charged basic groups to C-termini via chemical derivatizations is known to be able to enhance their fragmentation efficiency. In this study, we introduced a novel strategy, C-termini sequential amidation reaction (CSAR), to improve peptide fragmentation efficiency. By this strategy, C-terminal and side-chain carboxyl groups were firstly amidated by neutral methylamine (MA), and then C-terminal amide bonds were selectively deamidated through peptide amidase while side-chain amide bonds remained unchanged, followed by the secondary amidation of C-termini via basic agmatine (AG). We optimized the amidation reaction conditions to achieve the MA derivatization efficiency of >99% for side-chain carboxyl groups and AG derivatization efficiency of 80% for the hydrolytic C-termini. We applied CSAR strategy to identify bovine serum albumin (BSA) chymotryptic digests, resulting in the increased fragmentation efficiencies (improvement by 9-32%) and charge states (improvement by 39-52%) under single or multiple dissociation modes. The strategy described here might be a promising approach for the identification of peptides that suffered from poor fragmentation efficiency.

Combinatorial Synthesis of A Series of Paeonol-based Phenylsulfonyl hydrazone Derivatives as Insecticidal Agents.

BACKGROUND: Plant secondary metabolites play an essential role in the discovery of novel insecticide due to their unique sources and potential target sites. Paeonol, the main phenolic components in Moutan Cortex, is recognized as a safe and potent botanical insecticide to many insects. The structural modification of paeonol in this study into phenylsulfonylhydrazone derivatives is proved an effective approach for the development of novel insecticides, those derivatives being more toxic than paeonol. However, there have been no reports on the insecticidal activity of paeonol-based phenylsulfonylhydrazone derivatives in controlling Mythimna separata. METHODS: We have been working to discover biorational natural products-based insecticides. Twelve novel paeonol-based phenylsulfonylhydrazone derivatives have been successfully prepared by structural modification of paeonol, and the insecticidal activity against M. separata by the leafdipping method at the concentration of 1 mg/mL has been evaluated. RESULTS: Insecticidal activity revealed that out of 12 title compounds, derivatives 5c and 5f displayed the best against M. separate with the FMR both of 53.6% than toosendanin (FMR = 50.0%). CONCLUSION: The results suggested that for the paeonol-based phenylsulfonylhydrazone series derivatives, the proper substituent of arylsulfonyl R at the hydroxyl position of paeonol was very important for their insecticidal activity. These preliminary results will pave the way for further modification of paeonol in the development of potential new insecticides.

Synthesis of sulfonate derivatives of maltol and their biological activity against Phytophthora capsici and Bursaphelenchus xylophilus in vitro.

Sixteen sulfonate derivatives of maltol were synthesized and screened in vitro for their anti-oomycete and nematicidal activity against Phytophthora capsici and Bursaphelenchus xylophilus, respectively. Among all the compounds, 3e, 3m, and 3p exhibited the most promising and pronounced anti-oomycete activity against P. capsici than zoxamide, and the EC50 values of 25.42, 18.44, 23.69, and 27.99 mg/L, respectively; compounds 3e, 3m, 3n, and 3p exhibited potent nematicidal activity with LC50 values ranging from 1 to 2 mg/L, especially 3m and 3n showed the best promising and pronounced nematicidal activity, with LC50 values of 1.1762 and 1.2384 mg/L, respectively. [Formula: see text].

Synthesis and insecticidal activity of sulfonate derivatives of sesamol against Mythimna separata in vivo.

A series of sulfonate derivatives of sesamol were synthesized and evaluated for their insecticidal activity against a crop-threatening agricultural pest, the pre-third-instar larvae of Mythimna separata in vivo. Among all the target compounds, compounds 3b, 3g, 3h, and 3p exhibited more promising insecticidal activity than sesamol and toosendanin, and the final mortality rates (FMRs) of 3b, 3g, 3h, 3p, 1, and toosendanin were 60.7%/60.7%/67.9%/53.6%/32.1%/50.0%, respectively. Especially compound 3h exhibited the most potent insecticidal activity with FMRs of 67.9%. This suggested that a 4-fluorophenylsulfonyl group introduced at the hydroxyl position of sesamol was necessary for obtaining the most potent compound.[Formula: see text].

Controlled synthesis of N, N-dimethylarylsulfonamide derivatives as nematicidal agents.

Gramine can be intelligently and efficiently supplied with N, N-dimethylamino group and then reacted with the corresponding sulfonyl chlorides to synthesize N, N-dimethylarylsulfonamides. We herein designed and controlled synthesis of N, N-dimethylarylsulfonamide derivatives, and first reported the results of the nematicidal activity of 15 title compounds 3a-o against Meloidogyne incongnita in vitro, respectively. Among all of the title derivatives, compounds 3a, 3c, 3k, and 3o exhibited potent nematicidal activity with median lethal concentration (LC50) values ranging from 0.22 to 0.26 mg/L. Most noteworthy, N, N-dimethyl-4-methoxyphenylsulfonamide (3c) and N, N-dimethyl-8-quinolinesulfonamide (3o) showed the best promising and pronounced nematicidal activity, with LC50 values of 0.2381 and 0.2259 mg/L, respectively.

Thermostability improvement of the glucose oxidase from Aspergillus niger for efficient gluconic acid production via computational design.

Gluconic acid (GA) and its alkali salts are extensively used in the food, feed, beverage, textile, pharmaceutical and construction industries. However, the cost-effective and eco-friendly production of GA remains a challenge. The biocatalytic process involving the conversion of glucose to GA is catalysed by glucose oxidase (GOD), in which the catalytic efficiency is highly dependent on the GOD stability. In this study, we used in silico design to enhance the stability of glucose oxidase from Aspergillus niger. A combination of the best mutations increased the apparent melting temperature by 8.5 °C and significantly enhanced thermostability and thermoactivation. The variant also showed an increased optimal temperature without compromising the catalytic activity at lower temperatures. Moreover, the combined variant showed higher tolerance at pH 6.0 and 7.0, at which the wild-type enzyme rapidly deactivated. For GA production, an approximate 2-fold higher GA production yield was obtained, in which an almost complete conversion of 324 g/L d-glucose to GA was achieved within 18 h. Collectively, this work provides novel and efficient approaches for improving GOD thermostability, and the obtained variant constructed by the computational strategy can be used as an efficient biocatalyst for GA production at industrially viable conditions.

Stereoselective synthesis of 4ß-acyloxypodophyllotoxin derivatives as insecticidal agents.

As our ongoing work on research of natural-product-based insecticidal agents, some 4α/ß-acyloxypodophyllotoxin derivatives were synthesized, and were evaluated against the pre-third-instar larvae of B. mori, A. dissimilis and M. separate in vivo at the concentration of 1 mg ml-1, respectively. Among all derivatives, compounds 2 g, h and 4c, d showed more promising insecticidal activities than their precursors - podophyllotoxin and epipodophyllotoxin. Furthermore, derivatives 2 g, h and 4c, d exhibited more relative amicable activities than their precursors - podophyllotoxin and epipodophyllotoxin. This results indicated that 4ß-acyloxy moiety in the podophyllotoxin derivatives was significant for obtaining the more potent compounds.

Computational redesign of enzymes for regio- and enantioselective hydroamination.

Introduction of innovative biocatalytic processes offers great promise for applications in green chemistry. However, owing to limited catalytic performance, the enzymes harvested from nature's biodiversity often need to be improved for their desired functions by time-consuming iterative rounds of laboratory evolution. Here we describe the use of structure-based computational enzyme design to convert Bacillus sp. YM55-1 aspartase, an enzyme with a very narrow substrate scope, to a set of complementary hydroamination biocatalysts. The redesigned enzymes catalyze asymmetric addition of ammonia to substituted acrylates, affording enantiopure aliphatic, polar and aromatic ß-amino acids that are valuable building blocks for the synthesis of pharmaceuticals and bioactive compounds. Without a requirement for further optimization by laboratory evolution, the redesigned enzymes exhibit substrate tolerance up to a concentration of 300 g/L, conversion up to 99%, ß-regioselectivity >99% and product enantiomeric excess >99%. The results highlight the use of computational design to rapidly adapt an enzyme to industrially viable reactions.

Engineering improved thermostability of the GH11 xylanase from Neocallimastix patriciarum via computational library design.

Xylanases, which cleave the ß-1,4-glycosidic bond between xylose residues to release xylooligosaccharides (XOS), are widely used as food additives, animal feeds, and pulp bleaching agents. However, the thermally unstable nature of xylanases would hamper their industrial application. In this study, we used in silico design in a glycoside hydrolase family (GH) 11 xylanase to stabilize the enzyme. A combination of the best mutations increased the apparent melting temperature by 14 °C and significantly enhanced thermostability and thermoactivation. The variant also showed an upward-shifted optimal temperature for catalysis without compromising its activity at low temperatures. Moreover, a 10-fold higher XOS production yield was obtained at 70 °C, which compensated the low yield obtained with the wild-type enzyme. Collectively, the variant constructed by the computational strategy can be used as an efficient biocatalyst for XOS production at industrially viable conditions.