Disease relevance of rpiA

• Escherichia coli rpiA gene encoding ribose phosphate isomerase A [1].
• Mutation of rpiA in Enterobacter cloacae decreases seed and root colonization and biocontrol of damping-off caused by Pythium ultimum on cucumber [2].
• The rpiA gene encoding ribose phosphate isomerase A was cloned from phage 1A2(471) of the Kohara gene library [1].

High impact information on rpiA

• In addition, strain A145 was a ribose auxotroph, as expected for an rpiA mutant [2].
• Experiments reported here indicate a key role for rpiA and possibly the pentose phosphate pathway in suppression of damping-off and colonization of subterranean portions of plants by E. cloacae [2].
• Molecular characterization of strain A145 indicated mini-Tn5 Km was inserted in a region of the E. cloacae genome with a high degree of DNA and amino acid sequence similarity to rpiA, which encodes ribose-5-phosphate isomerase [2].
• Escherichia coli strains defective in the rpiA gene, encoding ribose phosphate isomerase A, are ribose auxotrophs, despite the presence of the wild-type rpiB gene, which encodes ribose phosphate isomerase B. Ribose prototrophs of an rpiA genetic background were isolated by two different approaches [3].
• Host strains harboring the rpiA gene in a multicopy plasmid contained up to 42-fold as much ribose phosphate isomerase A activity as the haploid strain [1].

Biological context of rpiA

• The rpiA gene was cloned into an expression vector to construct plasmid pETrpiA [4].

References