Oba Yuichi, Kato Shin-Ichi, Ojika Makoto, Inouye Satoshi
Graduate School of Bioagricultural Sciences, Nagoya University, Nagoya 464-860, Japan.
Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2009 Dec 18;390(3):684-8. doi: 10.1016/j.bbrc.2009.10.028. Epub 2009 Oct 13.
Coelenterazine is an imidazopyrazinone compound (3,7-dihydroimidazopyrazin-3-one structure) that is widely distributed in marine organisms and used as a luciferin for various bioluminescence reactions. We have used electrospray ionization-ion trap-mass spectrometry to investigate whether the deep-sea luminous copepod Metridia pacifica is able to synthesize coelenterazine. By feeding experiments using deuterium labeled amino acids of l-tyrosine and l-phenylalanine, we have shown that coelenterazine can be synthesized from two molecules of l-tyrosine and one molecule of l-phenylalanine in M. pacifica. This is the first demonstration that coelenterazine is biosynthesized from free l-amino acids in a marine organism.
腔肠素是一种咪唑并吡嗪酮化合物（3,7-二氢咪唑并吡嗪-3-酮结构），广泛分布于海洋生物中，并用作各种生物发光反应的荧光素。我们使用电喷雾电离-离子阱-质谱法研究深海发光桡足类太平洋真哲水蚤是否能够合成腔肠素。通过使用氘标记的L-酪氨酸和L-苯丙氨酸进行喂养实验，我们已经证明在太平洋真哲水蚤中，腔肠素可以由两分子L-酪氨酸和一分子L-苯丙氨酸合成。这是首次证明腔肠素是在海洋生物中由游离L-氨基酸生物合成的。
