Abstract (eng)
Fas ligand is a transmembrane protein expressed on activated T-cells, natural killer cells and immune privileged tissue. Together with its correspondent receptor, it is part of the extrinsic apoptosis pathway, playing an important role in the immune system, T-cell regulation and cancer development. However, in recent years it could be shown that FasL is also involved in many non-apoptotic signaling pathways. Especially the so-called soluble Fas ligand (sFasL), seems to exhibit a quite different set of functions. Since alterations in these highly concerted processes frequently lead to several forms of diseases and it is known that posttranslational modifications are often involved in disease related transformations, we wanted to investigate the influence of N-glycosylation of sFasL on different parameter, such as receptor binding or the induction of different signaling pathways. To investigate the impact of individual glycan structures at specific positions in proteins, access to homogeneously glycosylated protein variants is urgently needed. To obtain such homogeneously N-glycosylated variants of sFasL, a chemoenzymatic approach was chosen. The protein was assembled from three segments, synthesized by solid phase peptide synthesis, using native chemical ligation and diselenide-selenoester ligation (DSL). At the native glycosylation sites, asparagine-GlcNAc building blocks were introduced for subsequent enzymatic glycosylation. Different techniques to enhance solubilization and ligation yields were tested. Finally, using peptides without solubilizing elements in DSL reactions, exploiting the fact that this kind of reaction proceeds even at micromolar concentrations, led to the formation of full-length protein. After deselenization and protecting group removal, final sFasL141-281 could be obtained. A homogeneous N-glycan core structure which can be activated and transferred to Asn-GlcNAc was obtained by isolating sialoglycopeptide (SGP) from egg yolk and further enzymatically trimming it down. After activation of the tetrasaccharide, endoglycosynthases can be used to transfer the carbohydrate structure to a GlcNAc containing peptide, forming site specifically introduced homogeneous N-glycan core structures. Subsequent elongation could further increase the number of accessible glycopeptide variants. Unfortunately, tetrasaccharide transfer was only successful using a short testpeptide and not sFasL247-281, most likely due to solubility issues or interaction of the enzyme with the selenocysteine.