Synthesis and nucleophilic reactivity of a series of glutathione analogues, modified at the gamma-glutamyl moiety.

A series of GSH analogues with modifications at the gamma-glutamyl moiety was synthesized and purified by following peptide chemistry methodology. Benzyl, benzyloxycarbonyl and t-butyloxycarbonyl protective groups were used to protect individual amino acid functional groups. The formation of peptide bonds was accomplished through coupling of free amino groups with active esters, generated by reaction of the carboxylate functions with dicyclohexylcarbodi-imide and 1-hydroxybenzotriazole. The protecting groups in the tripeptides were removed in a single step by using Na in liquid NH3. Precautions were taken in order to prevent oxidation of the thiol function in the cysteine residue. Thus GSH analogues containing both L- and D-glutamic acid and L- and D-aspartic acid, coupled to cysteinylglycine through both the alpha- and the omega-carboxylate group, were synthesized. Also, decarboxy-GSH and deamino-GSH, lacking one functional group in the glutamate moiety, were prepared. The spontaneous non-enzyme-catalysed nucleophilic reaction of these GSH analogues with the electrophilic model substrate 1-chloro-2,4-dinitrobenzene showed appreciable rate differences, indicating the importance of intramolecular interactions in determining the nucleophilic reactivity of the thiol function in the cysteine residue. In particular, the free amino group in the gamma-L-glutamic acid residue appears to play a crucial role in activating the thiol group in GSH. In an adjacent paper [Adang, Brussee, Meyer, Coles, Ketterer, van der Gen & Mulder (1988) Biochem. J. 255, 721-724] these results are compared with those obtained in a study on the ability of these GSH analogues to act as a co-substrate in the glutathione S-transferase-catalysed conjugation reaction with 1-chloro-2,4-dinitrobenzene.