The reactivities of phenylglyoxal (PGO), glyoxal (GO), and/or methylglyoxal (MGO) with several proteins, including ribonuclease A [EC 3.1.4.22] and its derivatives, alpha-chymotrypsin [EC 3.4.21.1], trypsin [EC 3.4.21.4], lysozyme [EC 3.2.1.17], pepsin [EC 3.4.23.1], rennin [EC 3.4.23.4], thermolysin, and insulin and its B chain, have been examined. From analyses of the reaction products, PGO was shown to be the most specific for arginine residues. GO and MGO also reacted rapidly with arginine residues, but they also reacted with lysine residues to a significant extent. A side reaction with N-terminal alpha-amino groups was observed with each of these reagents. 2. Two arginine residues out of four in ribonuclease A, two out of three in alpha-chymotrypsin, one out of two in trypsin, one out of two in pepsin, and one out of five in rennin appeared to react with PGO fairly rapidly, indicating a difference in the relative accessibility of these residues by the reagent. Extensive modification of the arginine residues by PGO occurred with RCM-derivatives of ribonuclease A and insulin B chain. The N-terminal isoleucine residues of alpha-chymotrypsin and trypsin appeared to be unreactive with PGO because of salt bridge formation with an aspartyl residue. The activity of alpha-chymotrypsin toward N-benzoyl-L-tyrosine ethyl ester and the lytic activity of lysozyme were lost rapidly on treatment with PGO, as in the case of ribonuclease A. Pepsin and rennin were only partially inactivated by reaction with PGO.
