Benarthin: a new inhibitor of pyroglutamyl peptidase. III. Synthesis and structure-activity relationships

Benarthin, a new inhibitor of pyroglutamyl peptidase (PG-peptidase), has been isolated from the culture filtrate of Streptomyces xanthophaeus MJ244-SF1. The structure of benarthin has been determined to be L-(2,3-dihydroxybenzoyl)arginyl-L-threonine. This structure was confirmed by the total synthesis of benarthin. Moreover, we synthesized benarthin derivatives to obtain information on the relationship between structure and inhibitory activity. The results indicated that the catechol group of benarthin is the essential moiety for the inhibition of PG-peptidase.