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    Biochem J. 2005 Oct 15;391(Pt 2):215-20.

    D-amino acid residue in a defensin-like peptide from platypus venom: effect on structure and chromatographic properties.

    Torres AM, Tsampazi C, Geraghty DP, Bansal PS, Alewood PF, Kuchel PW.

    School of Molecular and Microbial Biosciences, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia.

    The recent discovery that the natriuretic peptide OvCNPb (Ornithorhynchus venom C-type natriuretic peptide B) from platypus (Ornithorynchus anatinus) venom contains a D-amino acid residue suggested that other D-amino-acid-containing peptides might be present in the venom. In the present study, we show that DLP-2 (defensin-like peptide-2), a 42-amino-acid residue polypeptide in the platypus venom, also contains a D-amino acid residue, D-methionine, at position 2, while DLP-4, which has an identical amino acid sequence, has all amino acids in the L-form. These findings were supported further by the detection of isomerase activity in the platypus gland venom extract that converts DLP-4 into DLP-2. In the light of this new information, the tertiary structure of DLP-2 was recalculated using a new structural template with D-Met2. The structure of DLP-4 was also determined in order to evaluate the effect of a D-amino acid at position 2 on the structure and possibly to explain the large retention time difference observed for the two molecules in reverse-phase HPLC. The solution structures of the DLP-2 and DLP-4 are very similar to each other and to the earlier reported structure of DLP-2, which assumed that all amino acids were in the L-form. Our results suggest that the incorporation of the D-amino acid at position 2 has minimal effect on the overall fold in solution.

    PMID: 16033333 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

    PMCID: 1276918

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