Synthesis of selectively labeled histidine and its methylderivatives with deuterium, tritium, and carbon-14.

Isotopologues of l-histidine and its N-methylderivatives labeled with deuterium and tritium at the 5-position in the imidazole ring were obtained using the isotope exchange method. The deuterium-labeled isotopologues [5-(2)H]-l-histidine, [5-(2)H]-N(τ) -methyl-l-histidine, [5-(2)H]-N(π) -methyl-l-histidine, and [2,5-(2)H(2)]-l-histidine were synthesized by isotope exchange method carried out in a fully deuterated medium with. The same reaction conditions were applied to synthesize [5-(3)H]-N(τ) -methyl-l-histidine, [5-(3)H]-N(π) -methyl-l-histidine, and [5-(3)H]-l-histidine with specific activity of 2.0, 5.0, and 2.6 MBq/mmol, respectively. The N(π) -[methyl-(14)C]-histamine was obtained with specific activity of 0.23 MBq/mmol in a one-step reaction by the direct methylation of histamine by [(14)C]iodomethane.

Regioselectivity of the oxidative C-S bond formation in ergothioneine and ovothiol biosyntheses.

Ergothioneine (5) and ovothiol (8) are two novel thiol-containing natural products. Their C-S bonds are formed by oxidative coupling reactions catalyzed by EgtB and OvoA enzymes, respectively. In this work, it was discovered that in addition to catalyzing the oxidative coupling between histidine and cysteine (1 → 6 conversion), OvoA can also catalyze a direct oxidative coupling between hercynine (2) and cysteine (2 → 4 conversion), which can shorten the ergothioneine biosynthetic pathway by two steps.