Syntheses and Transglutaminase-Catalyzed Incorporation of Novel Spin-Labeled Primary Amines into Proteins

A series of spin-labeled primary amine derivatives, namely, 2,2,6,6-tetramethyl-piperidinyl-1-oxyl-4-amidoalkylamines with varying alkyl chain lengths, have been synthesized. The spin-labeled primary amine with a tetramethylene or a pentamethylene chain covalently modifies human plasma fibronectin with a stoichiometry of 0.97-to-1.0 (probe-to-subunit) in the presence of coagulation factor XIIIa. The labels with two or one methylene chain also similarly modify fibronectin, but with a stoichiometry of only about 0.3–0.4 per subunit. The spin-labeled primary amine with a trimethylene chain does not label fibronectin. The labeling site appears to be the glutamine-3 residue at the amino-terminal region of fibronectin. Electron spin resonance studies show that the bound labels are partially immobilized with an effective rotational correlation time of 0.4–0.6 ns. The spin-labeled primary amine with tetramethylene chain also is shown to covalently incorporate into bee venom melittin in the presence of guinea-pig liver transglutaminase. The syntheses of the various spin-labeled primary amines and their applications in the study of structure and dynamics of different proteins and peptides are discussed. The observations from this study suggest that these spin-labeled primary amines have potentially wide application as structural probes.