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Updated: Aug 11, 2026

Production, Crystallization and Structure Determination of C. difficile PPEP-1 via Microseeding and Zinc-SAD
Published on: December 30, 2016
Preliminary crystallographic analysis of sugar cane phosphoribosylpyrophosphate synthase
H B Napolitano1, S A Sculaccio, O H Thiemann
1Instituto de Física de São Carlos, Universidade de São Paulo, Caixa Postal 369, 13560-970 São Carlos, SP, Brazil.
Abstract:
Phosphoribosylpyrophosphate synthases (PRS; EC 2.7.6.1) are enzymes that are of central importance in several metabolic pathways in all cells. The sugar cane PRS enzyme contains 328 amino acids with a molecular weight of 36.6 kDa and represents the first plant PRS to be crystallized, as well as the first phosphate-independent PRS to be studied in molecular detail. Sugar cane PRS was overexpressed in Escherichia coli, purified and crystallized using the hanging-drop vapour-diffusion method. Using X-ray diffraction experiments it was determined that the crystals belong to the orthorhombic system, with space group P2(1)2(1)2 and unit-cell parameters a = 213.2, b = 152.6, c = 149.3 A. The crystals diffract to a maximum resolution of 3.3 A and a complete data set to 3.5 A resolution was collected and analysed.

