Chemical Synthesis of an Enzyme Containing an Artificial Catalytic Apparatus

Abstract

With the goal of investigating electronic aspects of the catalysis of peptide bond hydrolysis, an analogue of HIV-1 protease was designed in which a non-peptide hydroxy-isoquinolinone artificial catalytic apparatus replaced the conserved Asp25–Thr26–Gly27 sequence in each 99-residue polypeptide chain of the homodimeric enzyme molecule. The enzyme analogue was prepared by total chemical synthesis and had detectable catalytic activity on known HIV-1 protease peptide substrates. Compared with uncatalyzed hydrolysis, the analogue enzyme increased the rate of peptide bond hydrolysis by ∼108-fold. Extensions of this unique approach to the study of enzyme catalysis in HIV-1 protease are discussed.