A new series of cyclic amino acids as inhibitors of S-adenosyl L-methionine synthetase.

Optically active 3-amino-3-(tetrahydrofuranyl) carboxylic acid, 3-amino-3-(tetrahydrothienyl) carboxylic acid and their corresponding six membered ring analogues have been synthesised and examined as potential inhibitors of the enzyme S-adenosylmethionine (AdoMet) synthetase. The kinetic behaviour of these compounds was studied using recombinant rat liver AdoMet synthetase (alpha-isoform) fractionated from E. coli transformed with the plasmid pSSRL-T7N. All the compounds tested were competitive inhibitors of the enzyme with respect to L-methionine.