Aspartic Acid Forming α-Ketoacid–Hydroxylamine (KAHA) Ligations with (S)-4,4-Difluoro-5-oxaproline

Aza-Heterocyclic Building Blocks with In-Ring CF2 -Fragment

Modern organic chemistry is a titan supporting and reinforcing pharmaceutical, agricultural, food and material science products. Over the past decades, the organic compounds market has been evolving to meet all the research demands. In this regard, medicinal chemistry is especially dependent on available chemical space as subtle tuning of the molecule structure is required to create a drug with relevant physicochemical properties and a remarkable activity profile. The recent rapid evolution of synthetic methodology to deploy fluorine has brought fluorinated compounds to the spotlight of MedChem community. And now unique properties of fluorine still keep fascinating more and more as its justified installation into a molecular framework has a beneficial impact on membrane permeability, lipophilicity, metabolic stability, pharmacokinetic properties, conformation, pKa , etc. The backward influence of medicinal chemistry on organic synthesis has also changed the landscape of the latter towards new fluorinated topologies as well. Such complex relationships create a flexible and ever-changing ecosystem. Given that MedChem investigations strongly lean on the ability to reach suitable building blocks and the existence of reliable synthetic methods in this review we collected advances in the chemistry of respectful, but still enigmatic gem-difluorinated aza-heterocyclic building blocks.

A straightforward methodology to overcome solubility challenges for N-terminal cysteinyl peptide segments used in native chemical ligation

One of the main limitations encountered during the chemical synthesis of proteins through native chemical ligation (NCL) is the limited solubility of some of the peptide segments. The most commonly used solution to overcome this problem is to derivatize the segment with a temporary solubilizing tag. Conveniently, the tag can be introduced on the thioester segment in such a way that it is removed concomitantly with the NCL reaction. We herein describe a generalization of this approach to N-terminal cysteinyl segment counterparts, using a straightforward synthetic approach that can be easily automated from commercially available building blocks, and applied it to a well-known problematic target, SUMO-2.

Chemical Protein Synthesis by Chemoselective #x03B1;-Ketoacid-Hydroxylamine (KAHA) Ligations with 5-Oxaproline

Chemical protein synthesis enables the precise construction of proteins by employing solid-phase peptide synthesis and chemoselective ligations. One such chemoselective reaction suitable for protein synthesis is the α-Ketoacid-Hydroxylamine (KAHA) ligation. Fully unprotected peptides are ligated by a selective reaction between α-ketoacids and hydroxylamines to give native amide bonds. Herein, we describe the chemical synthesis of ubiquitin by a two-segment approach using the 5-oxaproline hydroxylamine.

Deciphering protein post-translational modifications using chemical biology tools

Proteins carry out a wide variety of catalytic, regulatory, signalling and structural functions in living systems. Following their assembly on ribosomes and throughout their lifetimes, most eukaryotic proteins are modified by post-translational modifications; small functional groups and complex biomolecules are conjugated to amino acid side chains or termini, and the protein backbone is cleaved, spliced or cyclized, to name just a few examples. These modifications modulate protein activity, structure, location and interactions, and, thereby, control many core biological processes. Aberrant post-translational modifications are markers of cellular stress or malfunction and are implicated in several diseases. Therefore, gaining an understanding of which proteins are modified, at which sites and the resulting biological consequences is an important but complex challenge requiring interdisciplinary approaches. One of the key challenges is accessing precisely modified proteins to assign functional consequences to specific modifications. Chemical biologists have developed a versatile set of tools for accessing specifically modified proteins by applying robust chemistries to biological molecules and developing strategies for synthesizing and ligating proteins. This Review provides an overview of these tools, with selected recent examples of how they have been applied to decipher the roles of a variety of protein post-translational modifications. Relative advantages and disadvantages of each of the techniques are discussed, highlighting examples where they are used in combination and have the potential to address new frontiers in understanding complex biological processes.