Spectroscopic investigations of peptide 401 from bee venom

The circular dichroism (CD) and ¹ H-nmr properties of peptide 401, a bee venom component with 22 amino acid residues and two disulfide bridges, have been studied under a variety of conditions and compared with those of the structurally related octadecapeptide apamin. The major component of the relatively intense CD signal in the 200-230-nm region in both cases probably arises from the rigid asymmetric ring structures of the disulfide bridges. CD spectra are practically unaffected by pH (in the region 1-7), solvent (water, trifluoroethanol, dioxane/water mixtures), concentration of peptide, or additions of salt (guanidinium chloride, KCl). Temperature changes (in the range 20-59°C) have only a modest influence. For both apamin and peptide 401, reduction of the two disulfide bridges results in a dramatic change of the CD spectrum, which acquires the characteristic form of a random coil. Preliminary ¹ H-nmr data are presented for both the reduced and the oxidized form. Several resonance peaks could be assigned on the basis of the theoretical random-coil spectrum. In the oxidized forms, six slowly exchangeable amide protons could be found in a spectrum taken at low pH, which are ascribed to intramolecular hydrogen bonds. Each of the four protons of the two histidine residues of peptide 401 appears as two distinct resonance peaks in the oxidized form but not in the reduced form. This is interpreted as arising from conformational heterogeneity of peptide 401.