Binding-Site Specificity of the Radiolytically Induced Crosslinking of Phenylalanine to Glucagon

The γ-radiation-induced crosslinking of phenylalanine to glucagon, mediated by OH·, has been shown to involve a limited number of binding sites on the glucagon molecule. Glucagon-phenylalanine adducts were partially separated from other radiolysis products with Sephadex gel filtration; further isolation of adducts was achieved with reverse-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). Amino acid analysis of the isolated adducts indicates that the aromatic residues (phenylalanine and tyrosine), basic residues (histidine and lysine), and sulfur-containing residue (methionine) of glucagon are predominantly involved in crosslinking; these are essentially the same residues implicated in glucagon-glucagon crosslinking. Acid hydrolysates and chymotryptic digests of glucagon-phenylalanine adducts were examined with HPLC. The number of amino acid-phenylalanine adducts and also chymotryptic peptides observed was much greater than would have been expected based on the amino acid analysis. This observation is best accounted for by the involvement in crosslinking of radicals formed on the glucagon with more than one possible phenylalanine-derived free radical.