Crystallographic studies of reduced bond inhibitors complexed with an aspartic proteinase

To aid in the design of an effective inhibitor to human renin, it is essential to have a detailed knowledge of how this aspartic proteinase interacts with its substrate, angiotensinogen. Human renin shows a stringent specificity toward the Leu-Val bond in its natural substrate. The minimal length for an effective substrate has been characterised as an octapeptide sequence derived from the amino terminal portion of angiotensinogen (residues 6----13): His-Pro-Phe-His-Leu-Val-Ile-His (Leu-Val is the scissile bond). This suggests that renin has a fairly extensive active site cleft, as has been observed in homologous enzymes whose three-dimensional structures have been solved using x-ray diffraction methods. The homologous fungal aspartic proteinase, endothiapepsin, has been cocrystallised with human renin inhibitors of the type His-Pro-Phe-His-Leu-R-Val-Ile-His, where R indicates a reduced carbonyl analogue of the scissile peptide bond. The three-dimensional crystallographic structures of two complexes of endothiapepsin with an inhibitor have been solved. The details of inhibitor binding at the active site cleft of endothiapepsin are described. These data allow a rational approach to the design of novel renin inhibitors, through studies of these inhibitors in a three-dimensional model of human renin constructed in our laboratory.