A Semisynthetic Strategy Leads to Alteration of the Backbone Amidate Ligand in the NiSOD Active Site.

Computational investigations have implicated the amidate ligand in nickel superoxide dismutase (NiSOD) in stabilizing Ni-centered redox catalysis and in preventing cysteine thiolate ligand oxidation. To test these predictions, we have used an experimental approach utilizing a semisynthetic scheme that employs native chemical ligation of a pentapeptide (HCDLP) to recombinant S. coelicolor NiSOD lacking these N-terminal residues, NΔ5-NiSOD.

Reactivation of latent HIV-1 by new semi-synthetic ingenol esters.

The ability of HIV to establish long-lived latent infection is mainly due to transcriptional silencing of viral genome in resting memory T lymphocytes. Here, we show that new semi-synthetic ingenol esters reactivate latent HIV reservoirs. Amongst the tested compounds, 3-caproyl-ingenol (ING B) was more potent in reactivating latent HIV than known activators such as SAHA, ingenol 3,20-dibenzoate, TNF-α, PMA and HMBA.

A direct spectrophotometric gamma-glutamyltransferase inhibitor screening assay targeting the hydrolysis-only mode.

Gamma-glutamyltransferase (GGT, E.C. 2.

Interaction of GTP derivatives with cellular and oncogenic ras-p21 proteins.

A series of N2-substituted guanosine 5'-triphosphates was synthesized from the corresponding nucleosides. The nucleosides were prepared by treatment of N2-substituted guanines with tetra-O-acetylribose under conditions which maximized the yield of the 9-beta-guanosine isomers. These nucleotides and several sugar- and base-modified analogues of GTP were tested for their ability to bind to cellular and oncogenic forms of the GTP/GDP binding proteins, Ha-ras-p21.

Development of novel inhibitor probes of DNA polymerase III based on dGTP analogs of the HPUra type: base, nucleoside and nucleotide derivatives of N2-(3,4-dichlorobenzyl)guanine.

6-(p-Hydroxyphenylhydrazino)uracil (H2-HPUra) is a selective and potent inhibitor of the replication-specific class III DNA polymerase (pol III) of Gr+ bacteria. Although formally a pyrimidine, H2-HPUra derives its inhibitory activity from its specific capacity to mimic the purine nucleotide, dGTP. We describe the successful conversion of the H2-HPUra inhibitor prototype to a bona fide purine, using N2-(benzyl)guanine (BG) as the basis.