摘要: 2-Benzy1-5-hydroxy-4-oxopentanoic acid 1 and its enantiomers were designed,synthesized and assayed for inhibitory activity against carboxypeptidase A(CPA,EC 3.4.17.1).To verify the role of the terminal hydroxyl group in 1 binding to CPA,2-benzyl-5benzyloxy-4-oxopentanoic acid 2 was also synthesized and evaluated.The inhibition constants show that both L-1 and D-1 were shown to have strong binding affinity with L-1 being more potent than its enantiomer by 165-fold.On the other hand,the inhibition constant of 2 increases 4-fold comparing with that of 1.In order to explore the exact binding mode of the hydroxyacteyl group of 1 to the active site zinc ion of CPA, we have solved the crystal structure of CPA complexed with L-1 up to 1.85Å resolution. In CPA L-1 complex,the phenyl ring is fitted in the substrate recognition pocket at the S'₁ subsite,and the carboxylate forms bifurcated hydrogen bonds with the guanidinium moiety of Arg-145 and Arg-127 and a hydrogen bond with the phenolic hydroxyl of the downpositioned Tyr-248.The carbonyl oxygen of L-1 does coordinate to the active site zinc ion of CPA as expectedly.Unexpectedly,the terminal hydroxyl group of L-1 is engaged in hydrogen bonding with carbonyl oxygen of Ser-197 instead of coordinating to the active site zinc ion.