Structure-activity relationships of new muscarinergic dibenzodioxazocines.

1H-NMR and X-ray conformation studies of new muscarinergic dibenzodioxazocines have been carried out. It is suggested that EGYT-2347 (2-chloro-12-/2-piperidino-ethyl/-dibenzo [d,g] [1, 3, 6] dioxazocine hydrochloride) may exist in solution in at least two distinct conformations, unlike other tricyclic or non-tricyclic compounds having antimuscarinergic activity. One of these conformations possessing an asymmetric, twisted central hetero-ring confined between two phenyl rings is probably the energetically more stable form, while the other having a butterfly-like structure, with mirror symmetry-related phenyl rings as in phenothiazines seems to be more suitable for receptor binding. The importance of the hydrophobic pocket at the receptor site was revealed by the good correlation of the calculated and measured hydrophobic parameters to the muscarinic activity of these newly synthesized and other known muscarinergic compounds.

Characteristic sequential residue environment of amino acids in proteins.

The occurrence of all di- and tripeptide segments of proteins was counted in a large data base containing about 119 000 residues. It was found that the abundance of the amino acids does not determine the frequency of the various di- and tripeptide segments. In addition, the frequency of the various tripeptides cannot be predicted from the observed pair-frequency values. The pair-frequency distribution of amino acids is highly asymmetrical, pairs formed from identical residues are generally preferred and amino acids cannot be clustered on the basis of their first neighbour preferences. These data indicate the existence of general short range regularities in the primary structure of proteins. The consequences of these short range regularities were studied by comparing Chou-Fasman parameters with analogous parameters determined from the results of conformational energy calculations of single amino acids. This comparison shows that Chou-Fasman parameters carry significant information about the environment of each amino acid. The success of the Chou-Fasman's prediction and the properties of the pair and triplet distribution of the amino acid residues suggest that every amino acid has a characteristic sequential residue environment in proteins. The observed preferences could be invoked, for example, in protein design or in the study of the evolutionary relationship of proteins.

Kinetic pathways of formation and dissociation of the glycerol-3-phosphate dehydrogenase-fructose-1,6-bisphosphate aldolase complex.

Quantitative analysis of the time courses of fluorescence anisotropy changes due to the binding of fructose-1,6-bisphosphate aldolase to the dissociable cytoplasmic glycerol-3-phosphate dehydrogenase covalently labelled with fluorescent dye was carried out. The behaviour of the aldolase-dehydrogenase system seems to be consistent with a cyclic reversible model characterized by the formation and dissociation of complexes of both the monomeric and the dimeric forms of dehydrogenase with aldolase, and rapid equilibrium between the free monomeric and dimeric forms of dehydrogenase. The half-life time of the formation of dimeric dehydrogenase-aldolase complex at the concentration of the enzymes expected to exist in the cell (i.e. in the micromolar range) is some minutes, and the time needed for equilibration between the aldolase-bound dimeric and monomeric forms of dehydrogenase is a few minutes as well. Consequently, one may expect that both the formation and the dissociation of this heterologous enzyme complex have physiological relevance.

Homologous partial sequences in dehydrogenases.

Such details of the primary structure were sought that are common in all dehydrogenases of known amino acid sequence. Twenty-six sequences of eight kinds of dehydrogenase (D-glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase, alcohol dehydrogenase, lactate dehydrogenase, glutamate dehydrogenase, glycerol-3-phosphate dehydrogenase, ribitol dehydrogenase, L-hydroxyacyl-CoA dehydrogenase and homoserine dehydrogenase) have been compared by the aid of the artificial intelligence language Prolog, the amino acids being classified into groups according to their chemical properties, and alpha-helix or beta-sheet-forming abilities. We found tetrapeptides that occurred in all dehydrogenases examined. By using these tetrapeptides as markers a population of 84 partial sequences has been described. The partial sequences constituting this population are peptides comprising 35 residues. It has been shown statistically that these peptides form a homogeneous sample as regards the frequency of occurrence of amino acid groups. This statistically homogeneous partial sequences can be regarded as homologous and it is assumed that their presence is characteristic of dehydrogenases.