Award details

Comparative and Functional Genomics of Microbial Metabolism

Reference	BBS/E/F/00043375
Principal Investigator / Supervisor	Dr Anthony Michael
Co-Investigators / Co-Supervisors
Institution	Quadram Institute Bioscience
Department	Quadram Institute Bioscience Department
Funding type	Research
Value (£)	40,500
Status	Completed
Type	Institute Project
Start date	01/03/2008
End date	31/03/2009
Duration	13 months

Abstract

Polyamines are small, ubiquitous organic polycations found in all cells and are of primordial origin. The characterisation of polyamine biosynthesis was made in E. coli, yeast, human and Arabidopsis. However, the diversity of polyamine biosynthesis is much greater in bacteria than previously realised. Most work with polyamine metabolism represents only a small part of evolutionary space. The structure of bacterial polyamine biosynthetic pathways has not been analysed systematically and there is a need for an atlas of polyamine metabolism in the diverse archaeal and eubacterial phyla. The biosynthetic pathway of norspermidine is still incompletely characterised and part of this proposal will fill in the gaps. Most other enzymatic steps are probably identified at the gene level but there is considerable variety in which steps are used in which bacteria. In bacteria there are two folds each of the key polyamine biosynthetic enzymes ornithine decarboxylase, arginine decarboxylase, S-adensoyl methionine decarboxylase, used to synthesise spermidine. None of these enzymes are involved in norspermidine biosynthesis. Many other steps in polyamine biosynthesis have alternate versions eg., agmatine can be converted directly to putrescine by agmatinase or it can be converted by a two step process requiring agmatine iminohydrolase and N-carbamoylputrescine amidohydrolase. Although the tiny genome of Mycoplasma genitalium does not contain any polyamine biosynthetic enzymes the three components of the ABC transporter that takes up putrescine and spermidine are each essential for growth of M. genitalium. Thus polyamines can be regarded as part of the minimal metabolome of life. This project will fill in the few remaining gaps in the structure of polyamine biosynthetic pathways and will use bioinformatics to produce an atlas of polyamine metabolism in the sequenced archaeal and eubacterial genomes.

Summary

unavailable

Committee	Closed Committee - Biochemistry & Cell Biology (BCB)
Research Topics	Microbiology
Research Priority	X – Research Priority information not available
Research Initiative	X - not in an Initiative
Funding Scheme	X – not Funded via a specific Funding Scheme

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