Hydrolysis of dipeptides glycylserine (Gly-Ser), leucylserine (Leu-Ser), histidylserine (His-Ser), glycylalanine (Gly-Ala), and serylglycine (Ser-Gly) was examined in vanadate solutions by means of H-1, C-13, and V-51 NMR spectroscopy. In the presence of a mixture of oxovanadates, the hydrolysis of the peptide bond in Gly-Ser proceeds under the physiological pH and temperature (37 degrees C, pD 7.4) with a rate constant of 8.9 x 10(-8) s(-1). NMR and EPR spectra did not show evidence for the formation of paramagnetic species, excluding the possibility of V(V) reduction to V(IV) and indicating that the cleavage of the peptide bond is purely hydrolytic. The pD dependence of k(obs) exhibits a bell-shaped profile, with the fastest hydrolysis observed at pD 7.4. Combined H-1, C-13, and V-51 NMR experiments revealed formation of three complexes between Gly-Ser and vanadate, of which only one complex, designated Complex 2, formed via coordination of amide oxygen and amino nitrogen to vanadate, is proposed to be hydrolytically active. Kinetic experiments at pD 7.4 performed by using a fixed amount of Gly-Ser and increasing amounts of Na3VO4 allowed calculation of the formation constant for the Gly-Ser/VO43- complex (K-f = 16.1 M-1). The structure of the hydrolytically active Complex 2 is suggested also on the basis of DFT calculations. The energy difference between Complex 2 and the major complex detected in the reaction mixture, Complex 1, is calculated to be 7.1 kcal/mol in favor of the latter. The analysis of the molecular properties of Gly-Ser and their change upon different modes of coordination to the vanadate pointed out that only in Complex 2 the amide carbon is suitable for attack by the hydroxyl group in the Ser side chain, which acts as an effective nucleophile. The origin of the hydrolytic activity of vanadate is most likely a combination of the polarization of amide oxygen in Gly-Ser due to the binding to vanadate, followed by the intramolecular attack of the Ser hydroxyl group.