Site of biosynthesis of a-tocopherol in spinach chloroplasts

The chloroplast envelope is a continuous boundary of two osmiophilic membranes and has an important role in galactolipid synthesis [ 11. It was interesting to determine whether the envelope is the site of synthesi

Characterization of an Arabidopsis thaliana cDNA encoding an S-adenosylmethionine-sensitive threonine synthase Threonine synthase from higher plants

AbstractAn Arabidopsis thaliana cDNA encoding an Sadenosylmethionine-sensitive threonine synthase (EC 4.2.99.2) has been isolated by functional complementation of an Escherichia coli mutant devoid of threonine synthase activity. Threonine synthase from A. thaliana was shown to be synthesized with a transit peptide. The recombinant protein is activated by Sadenosylmethionine in the same range as the plant threonine synthase and evidence is presented for an involvement of the N-terminal part of the mature enzyme in the sensitivity to Sadenosylmethionine

Evidence for Two Distinct Effector-Binding Sites in Threonine Deaminase by Site-Directed Mutagenesis, Kinetic, and Binding Experiments

A three-dimensional structure comparison between the dimeric regulatory serine-binding domain of Escherichia coli D-3-phosphoglycerate dehydrogenase [Schuller, D. J., Grant, G. A., and Banaszak, L. J. (1995) Nat. Struct. Biol. 2, 69-76] and the regulatory domain of E. coli threonine deaminase [Gallagher, D. T., Gilliland, G. L., Xiao, G., Zondlo, J., Fisher, K. E., Chinchilla, D. , and Eisenstein, E. (1998) Structure 6, 465-475] led us to make the hypothesis that threonine deaminase could have two binding sites per monomer. To test this hypothesis about the corresponding plant enzyme, site-directed mutagenesis was carried out on the recombinant Arabidopsis thaliana threonine deaminase. Kinetic and binding experiments demonstrated for the first time that each regulatory domain of the monomers of A. thaliana threonine deaminase possesses two different effector-binding sites constituted in part by Y449 and Y543. Our results demonstrate that Y449 belongs to a high-affinity binding site whose interaction with a first isoleucine induces conformational modifications yielding a conformer displaying a higher activity and with enhanced ability to bind a second isoleucine on a lower-affinity binding site containing Y543. Isoleucine interaction with this latter binding site is responsible for conformational modifications leading to final inhibition of the enzyme. Y449 interacts with both regulators, isoleucine and valine. However, interaction of valine with the high-affinity binding site induces different conformational modifications leading to reversal of isoleucine binding and reversal of inhibition