Expeditious chemical synthesis of ubiquitinated peptides employing orthogonal protection and native chemical ligation.

Ubiquitination-the attachment of ubiquitin to a protein target-is involved in a wide range of cellular processes in eukaryotes. This dynamic posttranslational modification utilizes three enzymes to link, through an isopeptide bond, the C-terminal Gly of ubiquitin to the lysine side chain from a protein target. Progress in the field aiming at deciphering the role of ubiquitination in biological processes has been very dependent on the discovery of the enzymatic machinery, which is known to be very specific to each protein target.

Protecting group variations of delta-mercaptolysine useful in chemical ubiquitylation.

The high efficiency and chemoselectivity of peptide ubiquitylation that is achieved using the delta-mercaptolysine prompted us to expand the scope of this residue in various ligation schemes. In this report, we demonstrate the synthesis of five analogues of this important amino acid bearing a variety of protecting groups, which is essential in sequential peptide ligation and ubiquitylation. The key-step in the synthesis is the nucleophilic 1,4-addition of a variety of thiols on a nitro olefin scaffold.

N-methylcysteine-mediated total chemical synthesis of ubiquitin thioester.

Ubiquitin thioester is a key intermediate in the ubiquitylation of proteins and is formed enzymatically through the activation of alpha-COOH of ubiquitin in an ATP dependent manner using the E1 enzyme. The current methods used for the preparation of ubiquitin thioester rely on either the enzymatic machinery or on expressed protein ligation technology. In this article, we report a new chemical strategy, combining native chemical ligation and N-methylcysteine containing peptides, to chemically prepare ubiquitin thioester for the first time.

Adherence in patients on dialysis: strategies for success.

Adherence is a major problem in patients with chronic kidney disease. Patients can be nonadherent with different aspects of their treatment, which includes medications, treatment regimens, and dietary and fluid restrictions. Although many lessons have been learned from adherence research, the evidence of how to modify adherence is somewhat mixed.