scholarly journals Formation of Pyrazines in Maillard Model Systems: Effects of Structures of Lysine-Containing Dipeptides/Tripeptides

Foods ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 273
Author(s):  
Furong Wang ◽  
Hailiang Shen ◽  
Ting Liu ◽  
Xi Yang ◽  
Yali Yang ◽  
...  

At present, most investigations involving the Maillard reaction models have focused on free amino acids (FAAs), whereas the effects of peptides on volatile products are poorly understood. In our study, the formation mechanism of pyrazines, which were detected as characteristic volatiles in sunflower seed oil, from the reaction system of glucose and lysine-containing dipeptides and tripeptides was studied. The effect of the amino acid sequences of the dipeptides and tripeptides on pyrazine formation was further highlighted. Four different dipeptides and six tripeptides were selected. The results showed that the production of pyrazines in the lysine-containing dipeptide models was higher than that in the tripeptide and control models. Compounds 2,5(6)-Dimethylpyrazine and 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine were the main pyrazine compounds in the dipeptide models. Furthermore, the C- or N-terminal amino acids of lysine-containing dipeptides can exert an important effect on the formation of pyrazines. In dipeptide models with lysine at the C-terminus, the content of total pyrazines followed the order of Arg−Lys > His−Lys; the order of the total pyrazine content was Lys−His > Lys−Arg in dipeptide models with N-terminal lysine. Additionally, for the tripeptide models with different amino acid sequences, more pyrazines and a greater variety of pyrazines were detected in the tripeptide models with N-terminal lysine/arginine than in the tripeptide models with N-terminal histidine. However, the total pyrazine content and the percentage of pyrazines in the total volatiles were similar in the tripeptide models with the same amino acids at the N-terminus. This study clearly illustrates the ability of dipeptides and tripeptides containing lysine, arginine and histidine to form pyrazines, improving volatile formation during sunflower seed oil processing.

2002 ◽  
Vol 184 (8) ◽  
pp. 2225-2234 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason P. Folster ◽  
Terry D. Connell

ABSTRACT ChiA, an 88-kDa endochitinase encoded by the chiA gene of the gram-negative enteropathogen Vibrio cholerae, is secreted via the eps-encoded main terminal branch of the general secretory pathway (GSP), a mechanism which also transports cholera toxin. To localize the extracellular transport signal of ChiA that initiates transport of the protein through the GSP, a chimera comprised of ChiA fused at the N terminus with the maltose-binding protein (MalE) of Escherichia coli and fused at the C terminus with a 13-amino-acid epitope tag (E-tag) was expressed in strain 569B(chiA::Kanr), a chiA-deficient but secretion-competent mutant of V. cholerae. Fractionation studies revealed that blockage of the natural N terminus and C terminus of ChiA did not prevent secretion of the MalE-ChiA-E-tag chimera. To locate the amino acid sequences which encoded the transport signal, a series of truncations of ChiA were engineered. Secretion of the mutant polypeptides was curtailed only when ChiA was deleted from the N terminus beyond amino acid position 75 or from the C terminus beyond amino acid 555. A mutant ChiA comprised of only those amino acids was secreted by wild-type V. cholerae but not by an epsD mutant, establishing that amino acids 75 to 555 independently harbored sufficient structural information to promote secretion by the GSP of V. cholerae. Cys77 and Cys537, two cysteines located just within the termini of ChiA(75-555), were not required for secretion, indicating that those residues were not essential for maintaining the functional activity of the ChiA extracellular transport signal.


1968 ◽  
Vol 109 (1) ◽  
pp. 19-24 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louise Oliver ◽  
Anne Stockell Hartree

The cystine-containing peptides of horse growth hormone were isolated and their amino acid sequences determined. Four unique half-cystine residues occur in two peptides, one containing 11 and the other, at the C-terminus of the protein, 15 amino acids. These sequences are compared with published data on growth hormones from other species.


1953 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 487-490 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Renner ◽  
D. R. Clandinin ◽  
A. B. Morrison ◽  
A. R. Robblee

Author(s):  
Daniel Bąk ◽  
Garry Cutting ◽  
Michał Milewski

AbstractProtein aggregation is a hallmark of a growing group of pathologies known as conformational diseases. Although many native or mutated proteins are able to form aggregates, the exact amino acid sequences involved in the process of aggregation are known only in a few cases. Hence, there is a need for different model systems to expand our knowledge in this area. The so-called ag region was previously found to cause the aggregation of the C-terminal fragment of the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR). To investigate whether this specific amino acid sequence is able to induce protein aggregation irrespective of the amino acid context, we altered its position within the CFTR-derived C-terminal peptide and analyzed the localization of such modified peptides in transfected mammalian cells. Insertion of the ag region into a different amino acid background affected not only the overall level of intracellular protein aggregation, but also the morphology and subcellular localization of aggregates, suggesting that sequences other than the ag region can substantially influence the peptide’s behavior. Also, the introduction of a short dipeptide (His-Arg) motif, a crucial component of the ag region, into different locations within the C-terminus of CFTR lead to changes in the aggregation pattern that were less striking, although still statistically significant. Thus, our results indicate that even subtle alterations within the aggregating peptide can affect many different aspects of the aggregation process.


2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 1018
Author(s):  
Hiroaki Yokota

Helicases are nucleic acid-unwinding enzymes that are involved in the maintenance of genome integrity. Several parts of the amino acid sequences of helicases are very similar, and these quite well-conserved amino acid sequences are termed “helicase motifs”. Previous studies by X-ray crystallography and single-molecule measurements have suggested a common underlying mechanism for their function. These studies indicate the role of the helicase motifs in unwinding nucleic acids. In contrast, the sequence and length of the C-terminal amino acids of helicases are highly variable. In this paper, I review past and recent studies that proposed helicase mechanisms and studies that investigated the roles of the C-terminal amino acids on helicase and dimerization activities, primarily on the non-hexermeric Escherichia coli (E. coli) UvrD helicase. Then, I center on my recent study of single-molecule direct visualization of a UvrD mutant lacking the C-terminal 40 amino acids (UvrDΔ40C) used in studies proposing the monomer helicase model. The study demonstrated that multiple UvrDΔ40C molecules jointly participated in DNA unwinding, presumably by forming an oligomer. Thus, the single-molecule observation addressed how the C-terminal amino acids affect the number of helicases bound to DNA, oligomerization, and unwinding activity, which can be applied to other helicases.


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