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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America logoLink to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
. 1990 Mar;87(5):1947–1949. doi: 10.1073/pnas.87.5.1947

Sequencing of peptides and proteins with blocked N-terminal amino acids: N-acetylserine or N-acetylthreonine.

D Wellner 1, C Panneerselvam 1, B L Horecker 1
PMCID: PMC53601  PMID: 2106685

Abstract

Many proteins cannot be directly sequenced by Edman degradation because they have a blocked N-terminal residue. A method is presented for deblocking such proteins when the N-terminal residue is N-acetylserine (which occurs frequently in eukaryotic proteins) or N-acetylthreonine. The method has been applied successfully to the determination of the N-terminal amino acid sequence of human, bovine, and rat parathymosins. Prothymosin alpha and other blocked proteins and peptides were also readily deblocked and sequenced by this procedure. It is proposed that the mechanism of the deblocking reaction involves an acid-catalyzed N----O shift of the acetyl group followed by a beta-elimination.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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