Despite the crucial function of the small intestine in nutrient uptake our understanding of the molecular events underlying the digestive function is still rudimentary. Recent studies demonstrated that enterocytes do not direct the entire dietary triacylglycerol toward immediate chylomicron synthesis. Especially after high-fat challenges, parts of the resynthesized triacylglycerol are packaged into cytosolic lipid droplets for transient storage in the endothelial layer of the small intestine. The reason for this temporary storage of triacylglycerol is not completely understood. To utilize lipids from cytosolic lipid droplets for chylomicron synthesis in the endoplasmic reticulum, stored triacylglycerol has to be hydrolyzed either by cytosolic lipolysis or lipophagy. Interestingly, triacylglycerol storage and chylomicron secretion rates are unevenly distributed along the small intestine, with the proximal jejunum exhibiting the highest intermittent storage capacity. We hypothesize that correlating hydrolytic enzyme activities with the reported distribution of triacylglycerol storage and chylomicron secretion in different sections of the small intestine is a promising strategy to determine key enzymes in triacylglycerol remobilization. We employed a serine hydrolase specific activity-based labeling approach in combination with quantitative proteomics to identify and rank hydrolases based on their relative activity in 11 sections of the small intestine. Moreover, we identified several clusters of enzymes showing similar activity distribution along the small intestine. Merging our activity-based results with substrate specificity and subcellular localization known from previous studies, carboxylesterase 2e and arylacetamide deacetylase emerge as promising candidates for triacylglycerol mobilization from cytosolic lipid droplets in enterocytes.
Abstract: Fluorophosphonates represent powerful probes for the identification and analysis of active serine hydrolases in activity based protein profiling. Although alkylphosphonofluoridates are widely used for such purposes, little is known about the synthesis and purification of arylphosphonofluoridates, which may be useful tools for screening enzyme activities toward aromatic esters. Our optimized route makes this subclass of transition state inhibitors broadly accessible for a diverse series of phosphonic acid derivatives using a combination of selective monoesterification with EDC.HCl and subsequent mild fluorination with DAST. All compounds were isolated as pure materials using a simple acid-base extraction protocol in 7693% yields over two steps. These probes can be stored under an inert atmosphere at -24C for several months without significant degradation.
