Identification of insulin intermediates and sites of cleavage of native insulin by insulin protease from human fibroblasts

We have studied the time sequence degradation of native insulin by insulin protease from human fibroblast using multiple steps involving purification of the products by high performance liquid chromatography, determination of peak composition by amino acid sequence analysis, and confirmation of structure by mass spectrometry and thus elucidated the sites of cleavage of insulin by human insulin protease. We observed that as early as 0.5 min of incubation, three major new peptide peaks, intact insulin, and four smaller peptide peaks can be detected. The major peptides are portions of the insulin molecule, with the amino ends of the A and B chains or the carboxyl ends of the A and B chains still connected by disulfide bonds. Peptide peak I is A1-13-B1-9. Peptide peak II is A1-14-B1-9. Peptide peak III is A14-21-B14-30. The smaller peptide peaks are A14-21-B17-30, A15-21-B14-30, A15-21-B10-30, and A14-21-B10-30. The major peptide bond cleavage sites therefore consist of A13-14, A14-15, B9-10, B13-14, and B10-17. With longer incubation times, peptide peak II appears to lose the A14 tyrosine to form peptide peak I. This peptide I, which is the amino end of the A and B chains, is not further degraded even after 1.5 h of incubation. With longer incubation times, the peptides containing the carboxyl ends of the A and B chains are further degraded to form products from cleavage at the A18-19, B14-15, B25-26, and a small amount of A19-20, B10-11, and B24-25 cleavage and the emergence of 2-5-amino acid peptide chains, tyrosine, alanine, histidine, and leucine-tyrosine. We conclude, based on the three-dimensional structure of insulin, that human insulin protease recognizes the alpha-helical regions around leucine-tyrosine bonds and that final degradation steps to small peptides do not require lysosomal involvement.