Significance of two distinct types of tryptophan synthase beta chain in Bacteria, Archaea and higher plants 英文参考文献.docVIP

/2001/3/1/research/0004.1 Research Significance of two distinct types of tryptophan synthase beta chain in Bacteria, Archaea and higher plants Gary Xie*?, Christian Forst*, Carol Bonner? and Roy A Jensen*? Addresses: *BioScience Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87544, USA. ?Department of Microbiology and Cell Science, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA. ?Department of Chemistry, City College of New York, New York, NY 10031, USA. Correspondence: Roy A Jensen. E-mail: rjensen@ Published: 14 December 2001 Received: 24 September 2001 Revised: 30 October 2001 Accepted: 30 October 2001 GenomeBiology 2001, 3(1):research0004.1–0004.13 The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at /2001/3/1/research/0004 ? 2001 Xie et al., licensee BioMed Central Ltd (Print ISSN 1465-6906; Online ISSN 1465-6914) Abstract Background: Tryptophan synthase consists of two subunits, D and E. Two distinct subgroups of E chain exist. The major group (TrpEb_1) includes the well-studied E chain of Salmonella typhimurium. The minor group of E chain (TrpEb_2) is most frequently found in the Archaea. Most of the amino-acid residues important for catalysis are highly conserved between both TrpE subfamilies. Results: Conserved amino-acid residues of TrpEb_1 that make allosteric contact with the TrpEa subunit (the D chain) are absent in TrpEb_2. Representatives of Archaea, Bacteria and higher plants all exist that possess both TrpEb_1 and TrpEb_2. In those prokaryotes where two trpEb genes coexist, one is usually trpEb_1 and is adjacent to trpEa, whereas the second is trpEb_2 and is usually unlinked with other tryptophan-pathway genes. Conclusions: TrpEb_1 is nearly always partnered with TrpEa in the tryptophan synthase reaction. However, by default at least six lineages of the Archaea are likely to use TrpEb_2 as the functional E chain, a