Characterization of aminopeptidases in human kidney and urine

Recent advances and concepts in substrate specificity determination of proteases using tailored libraries of fluorogenic substrates with unnatural amino acids

Substrate specificity of proteases can be determined using several methods among which the most frequently used are positional scanning library, proteomics and phage display. Classic approaches can deliver information about preferences for natural amino acids in binding pockets of virtually all proteases. However, recent studies demonstrate the ability to obtain much more information by application of unnatural amino acids to positional scanning library approaches. This knowledge can be used for the design of more active and specific substrates, inhibitors and activity based probes. In this minireview we describe recent strategies and concepts for the design and application of fluorogenic substrates library tailored for exopeptidases and endopeptidases.

Activity profiling of aminopeptidases in cell lysates using a fluorogenic substrate library

Aminopeptidases are exopeptidases that process peptide bonds at the N-terminus of protein substrates, and they are involved in controlling several metabolic pathways. Due to their involvement in diseases such as cancer or rheumatoid arthritis, their presence can also be used as a predictive biomarker. Here, we used a library of fluorogenic substrates containing natural and unnatural amino acids to reliably measure the aminopeptidase N (APN) activity in cell lysates obtained from human, pig and rat kidneys. We compared our results to the substrate specificity profile of isolated APN. Our data strongly support the observation that fluorogenic substrates can be successfully used to identify aminopeptidases and to measure their activity in cell lysates. Moreover, in contrast to assays using single substrates, which can result in overlapping specificity due to cleavage by several aminopeptidases, our library fingerprint can provide information about single enzymes.