Disease relevance of Gdp mannuronic acid

• The hasB gene product was shown to have global similarity with AlgD, a dehydrogenase, which catalyzes the production of GDP-mannuronic acid for the alginate capsule of Pseudomonas aeruginosa [1].

High impact information on Gdp mannuronic acid

• The 1.55 A crystal structure of GMD in ternary complex with its cofactor NAD(H) and product GDP-mannuronic acid reveals that the enzyme forms a domain-swapped dimer with two polypeptide chains contributing to each active site [2].
• An enzymatic in vitro alginate polymerization assay was developed by using 14C-labeled GDP-mannuronic acid as a substrate and subcellular fractions of alginate overproducing Pseudomonas aeruginosa FRD1 as a polymerase source [3].
• Alginate biosynthesis begins with the formation of an activated monomer, GDP-mannuronate, which is known to occur via the products of the algA, algC, and algD genes [4].
• The molecular biology and biochemistry of the enzymatic steps leading to the production of the Alg precursor GDP-mannuronic acid have been elucidated, but the mechanism of polymer formation and export of Alg are not understood [5].
• These results support the suggestion that the remaining alg genes in region II are likely to be involved in post GDP-mannuronic acid processing events such as mannuronic acid transport, polymerization, secretion, epimerization and acetylation [6].

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