The world's first wiki where authorship really matters (Nature Genetics, 2008). Due credit and reputation for authors. Imagine a global collaborative knowledge base for original thoughts. Search thousands of articles and collaborate with scientists around the globe.

wikigene or wiki gene protein drug chemical gene disease author authorship tracking collaborative publishing evolutionary knowledge reputation system wiki2.0 global collaboration genes proteins drugs chemicals diseases compound
Hoffmann, R. A wiki for the life sciences where authorship matters. Nature Genetics (2008)
 
 
 
 
 

Interconversion of the product specificity of type I eubacterial farnesyl diphosphate synthase and geranylgeranyl diphosphate synthase through one amino acid substitution.

Prenyltransferases catalyze the sequential condensation of isopentenyl diphosphate into prenyl diphosphates with specific chain lengths. Pioneering studies demonstrated that the product specificities of type I prenyltransferases were mainly determined by the amino acid residues at the 4th and 5th positions before the first aspartate-rich motif (FARM) of the prenyltransferases. We previously cloned a type I geranylgeranyl diphosphate synthase (GGDPSase) gene from Streptomyces griseolosporeus MF730-N6 [Hamano, Y., Dairi, T., Yamamoto, M., Kawasaki, T., Kaneda, K., Kuzuyama, T., Itoh, N., and Seto, H. (2001) BIOSCI: Biotechnol. Biochem. 65, 1627-1635]. In this study, a prenyltransferase gene was cloned from Streptomyces argenteolus A-2 and was confirmed to encode a type I farnesyl diphosphate synthase (FDPSase). Interestingly, the amino acid residues at the 4th and 5th positions before the FARM were the same in these two enzymes. To identify the amino acid that determines the product chain length, mutated enzymes, GGDPSase (L-50S), FDPSase (S-50L), GGDPSase (V-8A), FDPSase (A-8V), GGDPSase (A+57L), and FDPSase (L+58A), in which the amino acid residue at the -50th, -8th, and +57th (58th) position before or after the FARM was substituted with the corresponding amino acid of the other enzyme, were constructed. The GGDPSase (A+57L) and FDPSase (L+58A) produced farnesyl diphosphate and geranylgeranyl diphosphate, respectively. On the other hand, the other mutated enzymes produced prenyl diphosphates with the same chain lengths as the wild type enzymes did. These results showed that the amino acid residue at the 57th (58th) position after the FARM also played an important role in determination of the product specificity.[1]

References

 
WikiGenes - Universities