Kynurenic acid, a metabolite of the kynurenine pathway of tryptophan degradation, is an antagonist at N-methyl-d-aspartate and α7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptors and modulates glutamate, dopamine, and acetylcholine signaling. Cortical kynurenic acid concentrations are elevated in the brain and cerebrospinal fluid of schizophrenia patients. The proximal cause may be an impairment ...

11β-Hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (11β-HSD) regulates glucocorticoid action by catalyzing the interconversion of active cortisol and inactive cortisone in glucocorticoid and mineralocorticoid target tissues. Two distinct isoforms, 11β-HSD1 and 11β-HSD2, have been characterized. 11β-HSD1 is widely expressed, uses NADP+/NADPH as cofactors, and contributes to the metabolic syndrome and related conditions by increasing ...

UDP glucuronosyltransferases (UGTs) are important for the metabolism of many drugs. To understand the ontogeny of these enzymes in sheep (Ovis aries), knowledge of their expression levels at different developmental stages is important. cDNA sequences of six UGTs (UGT1A1, UGT1A3, UGT1A4, UGT1A6 and UGT1A9) were cloned in sheep liver by ...

Inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) are a mainstay anti-inflammatory therapy for the management of asthma. ICS are synthetic glucocorticoids that are structurally similar to the natural active human glucocorticoid cortisol. Steroid transforming enzymes of the aldo-keto reductase (AKR) family, namely AKR1D1 (5β-steroid reductase) and AKR1C1-4 (ketosteroid reductases) are implicated in the systemic ...

The classical malachite green (MLG) assay of phosphate, which added MLG after molybdate to the acidified reaction solutions of phosphate, tolerated interference from papaverine, sildenafil, and some similar hydrophobic amines. Resonance Rayleigh scattering signals, the alleviation of interference by poly(vinyl alcohol), and the precipitation of some yellow complexes supported that ...

Hepatotoxic aflatoxins have found a worthy adversary in two new families of bacterial oxidoreductases. These enzymes use the reduced coenzyme F420 to initiate the degradation of furanocoumarin compounds, including the major mycotoxin products of Aspergillus flavus. Along with pyridoxal 5'-phosphate synthases and aryl nitroreductases, these proteins form a large and ...

RNAi and enzymatic studies have shown the importance of 6-phosphogluconate dehydrogenase (6-PGDH) in Trypanosoma brucei for the parasite survival and make it an attractive drug target for the development of new treatments against human African trypanosomiasis. 2,3-O-Isopropylidene-4-erythrono hydroxamate is a potent inhibitor of parasite Trypanosoma brucei 6-phosphogluconate dehydrogenase (6-PGDH), the ...

Fluctuations in the brain levels of the neuromodulator kynurenic acid may control cognitive processes and play a causative role in several catastrophic brain diseases. Elimination of the pyridoxal 5'-phosphate dependent enzyme kynurenine aminotransferase II reduces cerebral kynurenic acid synthesis and has procognitive effects. The present description of the crystal structure ...

Gluconobacter oxydans is an industrially important bacterium that lacks a complete Embden-Meyerhof pathway (glycolysis). The organism instead uses the pentose phosphate pathway to oxidize sugars and their phosphorylated intermediates. However, the lack of glycolysis limits the amount of NADH as electron donor for electron transport phosphorylation. It has been suggested ...

The orchestration of a multitude of enzyme catalysts allows cells to carry out complex and thermodynamically unfavorable chemical conversions. In an effort to recruit these advantages for in vitro biotransformations, we have assembled a 10-step catalytic system-a system of biotransformations (SBT)-for the synthesis of unnatural monosaccharides based on the versatile ...

Carbamyl phosphate synthetase (CPS) is an enzyme that converts ammonia to carbamyl phosphate in the urea cycle. CPS deficiency is a genetic disorder that causes hyperammonemia because of enzyme activity deficiency. It is primarily diagnosed in neonates and infants and has a poor prognosis. We report an adult woman with ...

Cycloserine (CS, 4-amino-3-isoxazolidone) is a cyclic amino acid mimic that is known to inhibit many essential pyridoxal 5'-phosphate (PLP)-dependent enzymes. Two CS enantiomers are known; D-cycloserine (DCS, also known as Seromycin) is a natural product that is used to treat resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis infections as well as neurological disorders since ...

Giardia lamblia, the protist that causes diarrhea, makes an Asn-linked-glycan (N-glycan) precursor that contains just two sugars (GlcNAc(2)) attached by a pyrophosphate linkage to a polyprenol lipid. Because the candidate cis-prenyltransferase of Giardia appears to be more similar to bacterial enzymes than to those of most eukaryotes and because Giardia ...

The first synthesis of 1-deaza-pyridoxal 5'-phosphate (2-formyl-3-hydroxy-4-methylbenzyl phosphate) is described. The chemoenzymatic approach described here is a reliable route to this important isosteric pyridoxal phosphate analogue. This work enables elucidation of the role of the pyridine nitrogen in pyridoxal 5'-phosphate dependent enzymes.

The effect of extremely low frequency magnetic fields (50 Hz, 0.5 mT) - ELF-MF, on phosphate metabolism has been studied in the isolated ganglions of the garden snail Helix pomatia, after 7 and 16 days of snail exposure to ELF-MF. The influence of ELF-MF on the level of phosphate compounds ...

The pyridoxal-5'-phosphate (PLP)-dependent family of enzymes is a very diverse group of proteins that metabolize small molecules like amino acids and sugars, and synthesize cofactors for other metabolic pathways through transamination, decarboxylation, racemization, and substitution reactions. In this study we employed degenerated primer-based PCR amplification, using genomic DNA isolated from ...

Helicobacter pylori has been shown to degrade two phosphonates, N-phosphonoacetyl-L: -aspartate and phosphonoacetate; however, the bacterium does not have any genes homologous to those of the known phosphonate metabolism pathways suggesting that H. pylori may have a novel phosphonate metabolism pathway. Growth of H. pylori on phosphonates was studied and ...

In swim-up-selected spermatozoa of 38 normozoospermic patients, capacitated spermatozoa exhibited enhanced pentose phosphate pathway (PPP) activity and increased expression of glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD). The G6PD inhibitor DHEA and the inhibitors of NADPH oxidase apocynin and diphenylene iodonium (DPI) prevented both superoxide generation and capacitation in human spermatozoa, but whereas DPI ...

The role of remotely located ammonium groups in the active site of many phosphate-cleaving enzymes is investigated by using model systems thus providing mechanistic hints to a still unsolved problem.

Endopolyphosphatase activity has been revealed in cytosol preparations of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae with inactivated PPX1 and PPN1 genes encoding exopolyphosphatases. The enzyme cleaves inorganic polyphosphates with chain length of 15 to 208 phosphate residues to shorter chains without the release of orthophosphate (P(i)). The long chain polyphosphates are cleaved ...

Erythritol is an important sugar alcohol industrially produced only by fermentation. The highly osmophilic yeast-like fungi, Trichosporonoides megachiliensis SN-G42, enables commercial production of erythritol with a high conversion from glucose to erythritol of more than 47%. However, the microbial production pathway of erythritol remains unclear. In the present study, the ...

IGPS is a 51 kDa heterodimeric enzyme comprised of two proteins, HisH and HisF, that catalyze the hydrolysis of glutamine to produce NH(3) in the HisH active site and the cyclization of ammonia with N'-[(5'-phosphoribulosyl)formimino]-5-aminoimidazole-4-carboxamide-ribonucleotide (PRFAR) in HisF to produce imidazole glycerol phosphate (IGP) and 5-aminoimidazole-4-carboxamide ribotide (AICAR). Binding of ...

O-Acetylserine sulfhydrylase (OASS) is a pyridoxal 5'-phosphate (PLP)-dependent enzyme that catalyzes the conversion of O-acetylserine and bisulfide to l-cysteine and acetate in bacteria and higher plants. Enteric bacteria have two isozymes of OASS, A and B, produced under aerobic and anaerobic growth conditions, respectively, with different substrate specificities. The (31)P ...

In insects, the major products of phase II metabolism of ecdysteroids, which include the molting hormone, are phosphate esters. The phosphoconjugation pathway is a reversible process, comprising two enzyme systems: ecdysteroid 22-kinase (EcKinase) and ecdysteroid-phosphate phosphatase (EPPase). We report here that: (1) the biochemical characteristics of EcKinase and EPPase, (2) ...

The pharmacological effects of leaf extracts (EGb 761) from Ginkgo biloba L. are attributed to ginkgolides, bilobalide and biflavonoids. However, besides these beneficial attributes, ginkgotoxin, a B(6) antivitamin which may cause epileptic convulsions, other severe neuronal disorders and even death, is also found in Ginkgo leaves and leaf-derived remedies. Because ...

Alanine racemase catalyzes the interconversion of L-alanine and D-alanine and plays a crucial role in spore germination and cell wall biosynthesis. In this study, alanine racemase produced by Bacillus anthracis was expressed and purified as a monomer in Escherichia coli and the importance of lysine 41 in the cofactor binding ...

Carbamoyl phosphate (CP) has a half-life for thermal decomposition of <2 s at 100 degrees C, yet this critical metabolic intermediate is found even in organisms that grow at 95-100 degrees C. We show here that the binding of CP to the enzymes aspartate and ornithine transcarbamoylase reduces the rate ...

Inositol polyphosphatases (IPPases), particularly those that can hydrolyze myo-inositol hexakisphosphate (Ins P(6)), are of biotechnological interest for their ability to reduce the metabolically unavailable organic phosphate content of feedstuffs and to produce lower inositol polyphosphates (IPPs) for research and pharmaceutical applications. Here, the gene coding for a new protein tyrosine ...

Pantoea agglomerans strain E325, a commercially available antagonist for fire blight of apple and pear, was originally selected through screening based on suppression of Erwinia amylovora on flower stigmas, but specific mechanisms of antagonism were unknown. Bacterial modification of pH was evaluated as a possible mechanism by analyzing stigma exudates ...

To date, the structural and functional characterization of proteins belonging to the polyprenyl-phosphate N-acetylhexosamine-1-phosphate transferase superfamily has been relentlessly held back by problems encountered with their overexpression and purification. In the present work and for the first time, the integral membrane protein WecA that catalyzes the transfer of the GlcNAc-1-phosphate ...

The pathway of riboflavin (vitamin B2) biosynthesis is significantly different in archaea, eubacteria, fungi and plants. Specifically, the first committed intermediate, 2,5-diamino-6-ribosylamino-4(3H)-pyrimidinone 5'-phosphate, can either undergo hydrolytic cleavage of the position 2 amino group by a deaminase (in plants and most eubacteria) or reduction of the ribose side chain by ...

Streptomycetes are exploited for production of a wide range of secondary metabolites, and there is much interest in enhancing the level of production of these metabolites. Secondary metabolites are synthesized in dedicated biosynthetic routes, but precursors and co-factors are derived from the primary metabolism. High level production of antibiotics in ...

Pseudouridine, a non-classical nucleoside present in human urine as a degradation product of RNAs, is one of the few molecules that has a glycosidic C-C bond. Through a data base mining approach involving transcriptomic data, we have molecularly identified two enzymes that are involved in the metabolism of pseudouridine in ...

The production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and the induction of the antioxidative defense mechanism are very important in heavy metal toxicity. In this study, biological effects induced after uranium contamination were investigated for Arabidopsis thaliana. Three-week-old seedlings were exposed for 4days to 100microM U in an adjusted Hoagland solution. ...

Threonine biosynthesis is a general feature of prokaryotes, eukaryotic microorganisms, and higher plants. Since mammals lack the appropriate synthetic machinery, instead obtaining the amino acid through their diet, the pathway is a potential focus for the development of novel antibiotics, antifungal agents, and herbicides. Threonine synthase (TS), a pyridoxal-5-phosphate-dependent enzyme, ...

The enzymes of the glycolytic pathway constitute an excellent target for the design of new anti-protozoal agents; glyceraldehyde-3 phosphate dehydrogenase catalyzes the reversible oxidative phosphorylation of d-glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate (GAP) into d-glycerate 1,3-bisphosphate (1,3-diPG) in the presence of NAD+ and inorganic phosphate (P(i)). The prediction of three-dimensional structure of Entamoeba histolytica ...

Pyridoxine 5'-phosphate oxidases (PNPOxs) are known to catalyse the terminal step in pyridoxal 5'-phosphate biosynthesis in a flavin mononucleotide-dependent manner in humans and Escherichia coli. Recent reports of a putative PNPOx from Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Rv1155, suggest that the cofactor or catalytic mechanism may differ in Mycobacterium species. To investigate this, ...

We describe a multifunctional inositol polyphosphate kinase/phosphotransferase from Solanum tuberosum, StITPKalpha (GenBank accession number: EF362784), hereafter called StITPK1. StITPK1 displays inositol 3,4,5,6-tetrakisphosphate 1-kinase activity: K(m) = 27 microM, and V(max) = 19 nmol min(-1) mg(-1). The enzyme displays inositol 1,3,4,5,6-pentakisphosphate 1-phosphatase activity in the absence of a nucleotide acceptor and ...

The phosphatidylinositol phosphate signaling pathway is involved in many crucial cellular functions. The myo-inositol polyphosphate 5-phosphatases (5PTases) (E.C. 3.1.3.56) comprise a large protein family that hydrolyze 5-phosphates from a variety of phosphatidylinositol phosphate and inositol phosphate substrates. We previously reported that the At5PTase11 enzyme (At1g47510), which is one of the ...

O-Acetylserine sulfhydrylase catalyzes the final step of the biosynthesis of l-cysteine, the replacement of the beta-acetoxy group of O-acetyl-l-serine (OAS) by a thiol. The 5'-phosphate of the PLP cofactor is very tightly bound to the enzyme; it accepts 8 hydrogen bonds from enzyme side chains and a pair of water ...

YGL196W of Saccharomyces cerevisiae encodes a putative protein that is unidentified but is predicted to have a motif similar to that of the N-terminal domain of the bacterial alanine racemase. In the present study we found that YGL196W encodes a novel D-serine dehydratase, which belongs to a different protein family ...

Inositol 3,4,5,6-tetrakisphosphate [Ins(3,4,5,6)P4] is an inhibitor of the conductance of the Ca(2+)-activated chloride channels in the plasma membrane. These ion channels are required for salt and fluid secretion from epithelial cells, for cell volume homeostasis, and for electrical excitability in neurons and smooth muscle. The enzyme ITPK1 (inositol 1,3,4-triphosphate 5/6 ...

Methylglyoxal, an alpha-oxoaldehyde discovered in the 1880s, has had a hectic scientific career, at times being considered of fundamental importance and at other times viewed as playing a very subordinate role. Much has been learned about methylglyoxal, but the function of its production in the metabolic machinery is still unknown. ...

In various insects, 20-hydroxyecdysone (20E) is indispensable for embryonic development. In eggs of the silkworm Bombyx mori, 20E has been demonstrated to be produced by two metabolic pathways: de novo synthesis from cholesterol and dephosphorylation of ovary-derived physiologically inactive ecdysteroid phosphates. In the former, ecdysone 20-hydroxylase (E20OHase) has been suggested ...

INTRODUCTION: The effects of buffer and substrate solvent conditions on in vitro activity of carboxylesterases (CE) have not been previously described. Therefore, it is unknown if the many different assay conditions used by various laboratories have a substantial impact on the activity of CE enzymes. METHODS: Three human CEs were ...

Debaryomyces castellii phytase was purified to homogeneity in a single step by hydrophobic interaction chromatography. Its molecular mass is 74 kDa with 28.8% glycosylation. Its activity was optimal at 60 degrees C and pH 4.0. The K (m) value for sodium phytate was 0.532 mM. The enzyme exhibited a low ...

A study of the reaction between gaseous aldehydes and amines has implicated proton transfer from wall-associated water. Carbinolamine formation and subsequent dehydration to imine with assistance by wall associated hydroxyl bearing species has not previously been specifically suggested to obtain in the multitude of enzyme processes using pyridoxal cofactor. However, ...

Gamma-aminobutyric acid aminotransferase (GABA-AT), a pyridoxal 5'-phosphate dependent enzyme, catalyzes the degradation of the inhibitory neurotransmitter gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) to succinic semialdehyde with concomitant conversion of pyridoxal 5'-phosphate (PLP) to pyridoxamine 5'-phosphate (PMP). The enzyme then catalyzes the conversion of alpha-ketoglutarate to the excitatory neurotransmitter L-glutamate. Racemic 4-amino-3-fluorobutanoic acid (3-F-GABA) ...

The function of the mlr6791 gene from Mesorhizobium loti MAFF303099 has been identified. This gene encodes 3-hydroxy-2-methylpyridine-4,5-dicarboxylate decarboxylase (HMPDdc), an enzyme involved in the catabolism of pyridoxal 5'-phosphate (Vitamin B6). This enzyme was overexpressed in Escherichia coli and characterized. HMPDdc is a 26 kDa protein that catalyzes the decarboxylation of ...

Orotidine 5'-phosphate (OMP) decarboxylase appears to act upon its substrate without the intervention of metals or other cofactors and without the formation of covalent bonds between the enzyme and the substrate. Crystallographic information indicates that substrate binding forces the substrate's scissile carboxylate group into the neighborhood of several charged groups ...