On the mechanism of 5-enolpyruvylshikimate-3-phosphate synthase

Construction and assessment of reaction models of Class I EPSP synthase. Part II: investigation of the EPSP ketal

Although the proposed mechanisms are reasonable, there are still many questions about the 5-enolpyruvyl shikimate-3-phosphate (EPSP) synthase mechanism that are difficult to answer by experimental means alone. EPSP synthase is a key enzyme in the shikimic acid pathway, which is found only in plants and some micro-organisms and is also molecular target of glyphosate, active component of one of the top-selling herbicides. In the study of reaction mechanism of EPSP synthase, in addition to inorganic phosphate and EPSP products, after long time at equilibrium, it was shown that a side product is formed, the EPSP ketal. In this line, studies using density functional theory (DFT) techniques were performed to investigate the reaction mechanism of formation of EPSP and the corresponding ketal. Our findings indicate some key amino acid residues in the EPSP synthase mechanism and a possible route for the formation of the EPSP ketal.

Biosynthesis of ethers: unusual or common natural events?

Ether bonds are found in a wide variety of natural products--mainly secondary metabolites--including lipids, oxiranes, terpenoids, flavonoids, polyketides, and carbohydrate derivatives, to name some representative examples. To furnish such a biodiversity of structures, a large number of different enzymes are involved in several different biosynthetic pathways. Depending on the compound and on the (micro) environment in which the reaction is performed, ethers are produced by very different (enzymatic) reactions, thus providing an impressive display of how Nature has combined evolution and thermodynamics to be able to produce a vast number of compounds. In addition, many of these compounds possess different biological activities of pharmacological interest. Moreover, some of these ethers (i.e., epoxides) have high chemical reactivity, and can be useful starting materials for further synthetic processes. This review aims to provide an overview of the different strategies that are found in Nature for the formation of these "bioethers". Both fundamental and practical insights of the biosynthetic processes will be discussed.

Detection of novel enzyme intermediates in PEP-utilizing enzymes

This review will focus on established and newly emerging strategies for identifying and characterizing enzyme intermediates using a rapid transient kinetic approach. The merits of this methodology as well as the basics of experimental design are described. Several illustrative examples of PEP-utilizing enzymes have been chosen as they all perform unique, novel chemistries involving enzyme intermediates and have proven to be exciting pharmaceutical targets for antibiotics and herbicides. A novel application of this approach using time-resolved electrospray mass spectrometry to detect chemically labile enzyme intermediates is also discussed.

Measurement of internuclear distances in solid-state NMR by a background-filtered REDOR experiment

A background-filtered version of the rotational-echo double resonance (REDOR) experiment is demonstrated. The experiment combines a traditional REDOR pulse sequence with a double-cross-polarization (DCP) sequence to select only those signals coming from spin pairs of interest. The relatively inefficient DCP sequence, which transfers polarization from (1)H to (15)N and subsequently to (13)C, is improved by the use of adiabatic passages through the (-1) sideband of the Hartmann-Hahn matching condition. The result is an efficient 2D-REDOR pulse sequence that does not require a reference experiment for removal of background signals. The data produced by the experiment are ideally suited to analysis by newly developed dipolar transform methods, such as the REDOR transform. The relevant features of the experiment are demonstrated on simple labeled amino acids. Relative efficiencies of several other potential filtering methods are also compared. Copyright 2000 Academic Press.

THE SHIKIMATE PATHWAY

The shikimate pathway links metabolism of carbohydrates to biosynthesis of aromatic compounds. In a sequence of seven metabolic steps, phosphoenolpyruvate and erythrose 4-phosphate are converted to chorismate, the precursor of the aromatic amino acids and many aromatic secondary metabolites. All pathway intermediates can also be considered branch point compounds that may serve as substrates for other metabolic pathways. The shikimate pathway is found only in microorganisms and plants, never in animals. All enzymes of this pathway have been obtained in pure form from prokaryotic and eukaryotic sources and their respective DNAs have been characterized from several organisms. The cDNAs of higher plants encode proteins with amino terminal signal sequences for plastid import, suggesting that plastids are the exclusive locale for chorismate biosynthesis. In microorganisms, the shikimate pathway is regulated by feedback inhibition and by repression of the first enzyme. In higher plants, no physiological feedback inhibitor has been identified, suggesting that pathway regulation may occur exclusively at the genetic level. This difference between microorganisms and plants is reflected in the unusually large variation in the primary structures of the respective first enzymes. Several of the pathway enzymes occur in isoenzymic forms whose expression varies with changing environmental conditions and, within the plant, from organ to organ. The penultimate enzyme of the pathway is the sole target for the herbicide glyphosate. Glyphosate-tolerant transgenic plants are at the core of novel weed control systems for several crop plants.