Edman Degradation
Edman degradation, developed by Pehr Edman, is a method of sequencing amino acids in a peptide. In this method, the amino-terminal residue is labeled and cleaved from the peptide without disrupting the peptide bonds between other amino acid residues. Mechanism Phenyl isothiocyanate is reacted with an uncharged N-terminal amino group, under mildly alkaline conditions, to form a cyclical ''phenylthiocarbamoyl'' derivative. Then, under acidic conditions, this derivative of the terminal amino acid is cleaved as a thiazolinone derivative. The thiazolinone amino acid is then selectively extracted into an organic solvent and treated with acid to form the more stable phenylthiohydantoin (PTH)- amino acid derivative that can be identified by using chromatography or electrophoresis. This procedure can then be repeated again to identify the next amino acid. A major drawback to this technique is that the peptides being sequenced in this manner cannot have more than 50 to 60 residues (and ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Pehr Edman
Pehr Victor Edman (14 April 1916 — 19 March 1977) was a Swedish biochemist. He developed a method for sequencing proteins; the Edman degradation. Early life Edman was born in Stockholm, Sweden. In 1935, he started studying medicine at Karolinska Institutet, where he became interested in basic research and received a bachelor in medicine in 1938. His research was interrupted by the outbreak of World War II, where he was drafted to serve in the Swedish army. He returned to the Karolinska Institutet where he earned his doctoral degree under advice from Professor Erik Jorpes in 1946. Developing the Edman Degradation At the time Edman started working on Angiotensin, it was just being recognized that proteins are distinct entities with a defined molecular mass, electric charge and structure. This inspired Edman to develop a method, that could be used to determine the sequence of amino acids in the protein. In 1947, he was awarded a travel stipend to go to Rockefeller Insti ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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N-terminus
The N-terminus (also known as the amino-terminus, NH2-terminus, N-terminal end or amine-terminus) is the start of a protein or polypeptide, referring to the free amine group (-NH2) located at the end of a polypeptide. Within a peptide, the amine group is bonded to the carboxylic group of another amino acid, making it a chain. That leaves a free carboxylic group at one end of the peptide, called the C-terminus, and a free amine group on the other end called the N-terminus. By convention, peptide sequences are written N-terminus to C-terminus, left to right (in LTR writing systems). This correlates the translation direction to the text direction, because when a protein is translated from messenger RNA, it is created from the N-terminus to the C-terminus, as amino acids are added to the carboxyl end of the protein. Chemistry Each amino acid has an amine group and a carboxylic group. Amino acids link to one another by peptide bonds which form through a dehydration reaction that ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Name Reactions
A name reaction (or named reaction) is a chemical reaction named after its discoverer(s) or developer(s). Among the tens of thousands of organic reactions that are known, hundreds of such reactions are typically identified by the eponym. Well-known examples include the Grignard reaction, the Sabatier reaction, the Wittig reaction, the Claisen condensation, the Friedel–Crafts acylation, and the Diels–Alder reaction. Books have been published devoted exclusively to name reactions;Alfred Hassner, C. Stumer. ''Organic syntheses based on name reactions''. Elsevier, 2002. Li, Jie Jack. ''Name Reactions: A Collection of Detailed Reaction Mechanisms''. Springer, 2003. the ''Merck Index ''The Merck Index'' is an encyclopedia of chemical substance, chemicals, pharmaceutical drug, drugs and biomolecule, biologicals with over 10,000 monographs on single substances or groups of related chemical compound, compounds published online ...'', a chemical encyclopedia, also includes an ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Proteomics
Proteomics is the large-scale study of proteins. Proteins are vital macromolecules of all living organisms, with many functions such as the formation of structural fibers of muscle tissue, enzymatic digestion of food, or synthesis and replication of DNA. In addition, other kinds of proteins include antibodies that protect an organism from infection, and hormones that send important signals throughout the body. The proteome is the entire set of proteins produced or modified by an organism or system. Proteomics enables the identification of ever-increasing numbers of proteins. This varies with time and distinct requirements, or stresses, that a cell or organism undergoes. Proteomics is an interdisciplinary domain that has benefited greatly from the genetic information of various genome projects, including the Human Genome Project. It covers the exploration of proteomes from the overall level of protein composition, structure, and activity, and is an important component of function ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Protein Structure
Protein structure is the three-dimensional arrangement of atoms in an amino acid-chain molecule. Proteins are polymers specifically polypeptides formed from sequences of amino acids, which are the monomers of the polymer. A single amino acid monomer may also be called a ''residue'', which indicates a repeating unit of a polymer. Proteins form by amino acids undergoing condensation reactions, in which the amino acids lose one water molecule per reaction in order to attach to one another with a peptide bond. By convention, a chain under 30 amino acids is often identified as a peptide, rather than a protein. To be able to perform their biological function, proteins fold into one or more specific spatial conformations driven by a number of non-covalent interactions, such as hydrogen bonding, ionic interactions, Van der Waals forces, and hydrophobic packing. To understand the functions of proteins at a molecular level, it is often necessary to determine their three-dimensiona ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Organic Reactions
Organic reactions are chemical reactions involving organic compounds. The basic organic chemistry reaction types are addition reactions, elimination reactions, substitution reactions, pericyclic reactions, rearrangement reactions, photochemical reactions and redox reactions. In organic synthesis, organic reactions are used in the construction of new organic molecules. The production of many man-made chemicals such as drugs, plastics, food additives, fabrics depend on organic reactions. The oldest organic reactions are combustion of organic fuels and saponification of fats to make soap. Modern organic chemistry starts with the Wöhler synthesis in 1828. In the history of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry awards have been given for the invention of specific organic reactions such as the Grignard reaction in 1912, the Diels–Alder reaction in 1950, the Wittig reaction in 1979 and olefin metathesis in 2005. Classifications Organic chemistry has a strong tradition of naming a specif ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Molecular Biology
Molecular biology is a branch of biology that seeks to understand the molecule, molecular basis of biological activity in and between Cell (biology), cells, including biomolecule, biomolecular synthesis, modification, mechanisms, and interactions. Though cells and other microscopic structures had been observed in living organisms as early as the 18th century, a detailed understanding of the mechanisms and interactions governing their behavior did not emerge until the 20th century, when technologies used in physics and chemistry had advanced sufficiently to permit their application in the biological sciences. The term 'molecular biology' was first used in 1945 by the English physicist William Astbury, who described it as an approach focused on discerning the underpinnings of biological phenomena—i.e. uncovering the physical and chemical structures and properties of biological molecules, as well as their interactions with other molecules and how these interactions explain observ ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Dansyl Chloride
Dansyl chloride or 5-(dimethylamino)naphthalene-1-sulfonyl chloride is a reagent that reacts with primary amino groups in both aliphatic and aromatic amines to produce stable blue- or blue-green–fluorescent sulfonamide adducts. It can also be made to react with secondary amines. Dansyl chloride is widely used to modify amino acids; specifically, protein sequencing and amino acid analysis. Dansyl chloride may also be denoted DNSC. Likewise, a similar derivative, dansyl amide is known as DNSA. In addition, these protein-DNSC conjugates are sensitive to their immediate environment. This, in combination with their ability to accept energy (as in fluorescence resonance energy transfer) from the amino acid tryptophan, allows this labeling technique to be used in investigating protein folding and dynamics. The fluorescence of these sulfonamide adducts can be enhanced by adding alpha-cyclodextrin. Dansyl chloride is unstable in dimethyl sulfoxide, which should never be used to prep ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bergmann Degradation
Bergmann is a German or Swedish surname. It means "mountain man" in both languages, as well as "miner" in German. '' Bergman'' is also a common surname in the United States, Sweden, Germany and the Netherlands. The surname may refer to: *Art Bergmann (born 1953), Canadian rock singer-songwriter * Carl Bergmann, (1814–1865) German anatomist, physiologist, and biologist who developed Bergmann's rule * Carl Bergmann (1821–1876), German-American cellist and conductor * Carl Bergmann (1874–1935), German secretary of state * Daniel Bergmann (born 1962), Czech filmmaker and media mogul (son of Pavel) *Eirikur Bergmann (born 1969), Icelandic writer and professor of political science * Ernst Bergmann (1881–1945), German philosopher and proponent of Nazism *Ernst David Bergmann (1903–1975), Israeli nuclear scientist and chemist who found a nuclear program (brother of Theodor, the agronomist) *Ernst von Bergmann (1836–1907), Baltic German surgeon who introduced principles of asep ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Isoaspartate
Isoaspartic acid (isoaspartate, isoaspartyl, β-aspartate) is an aspartic acid residue isomeric to the typical α peptide linkage. It is a β-amino acid, with the side chain carboxyl moved to the backbone. Such a change is caused by a chemical reaction in which the nitrogen atom on the N+1 following peptide bond (in black at top right of Figure 1) nucleophilically attacks the γ-carbon of the side chain of an asparagine or aspartic acid residue, forming a succinimide intermediate (in red). Hydrolysis of the intermediate results in two products, either aspartic acid (in black at left) or isoaspartic acid, which is a β-amino acid (in green at bottom right). The reaction also results in the deamidation of the asparagine residue. Racemization may occur leading to the formation of D-aminoacids. Kinetics of isoaspartyl formation Isoaspartyl formation reactions have been conjectured to be one of the factors that limit the useful lifetime of protein Proteins are large biomolecul ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Pyroglutamic Acid
Pyroglutamic acid (also known as PCA, 5-oxoproline, pidolic acid) is a ubiquitous but understudied natural amino acid derivative in which the free amino group of glutamic acid or glutamine cyclizes to form a lactam. The names of pyroglutamic acid conjugate base, anion, salts, and esters are pyroglutamate, 5-oxoprolinate, or pidolate. It is a metabolite in the glutathione cycle that is converted to glutamate by 5-oxoprolinase. Pyroglutamate is found in many proteins including bacteriorhodopsin. ''N''-terminal glutamic acid and glutamine residues can spontaneously cyclize to become pyroglutamate, or enzymatically converted by glutaminyl cyclases. This is one of several forms of blocked ''N''-termini which present a problem for ''N''-terminal sequencing using Edman chemistry, which requires a free primary amino group not present in pyroglutamic acid. The enzyme pyroglutamate aminopeptidase can restore a free ''N''-terminus by cleaving off the pyroglutamate residue. Pyroglutami ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Acetylation
: In chemistry, acetylation is an organic esterification reaction with acetic acid. It introduces an acetyl group into a chemical compound. Such compounds are termed ''acetate esters'' or simply ''acetates''. Deacetylation is the opposite reaction, the removal of an acetyl group from a chemical compound. Acetylation/deacetylation in biology Histone deacetylases "play crucial roles in gene transcription and most likely in all eukaryotic biological processes that involve chromatin". Acetylation is one type of post-translational modification of proteins. The acetylation of the ε-amino group of lysine, which is common, converts a charged side chain to a neutral one. Acetylation/deacetylation of histones also plays a role in gene expression and cancer. These modifications are effected by enzymes called histone acetyltransferases (HATs) and histone deacetylases (HDACs). Two general mechanisms are known for deacetylation. One mechanism involves zinc binding to the acetyl o ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |