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Updated: May 29, 2026

Biochemical and Structural Characterization of the Carbohydrate Transport Substrate-binding-protein SP0092
Published on: October 2, 2017
Wide sugar substrate specificity of galactokinase from Streptococcus pneumoniae TIGR4
Min Chen1, Lei-lei Chen, Yang Zou
1The State Key laboratory of Microbial Technology, Shandong University, 27# Shanda South Road, Jinan, Shandong 250100, China.
Abstract:
Galactokinases (GALK) have attracted significant research attention for their potential application in the enzymatic synthesis of unique sugar phosphates. The galactokinase (GalKSpe4) cloned from Streptococcus pneumoniae TIGR4 had a temperature optimum of 45°C, and a pH optimum of 8.0. The substrate specificity and kinetics studies revealed that GalKSpe4 had moderate activity toward glucose, in contrast with very low or no activity observed in other previously reported GALKs. Most interestingly, GalKSpe4 exhibited activity for GalNAc, which had never been recorded in other GALKs found by now. This is the first time to report that bacterial GALK can recognize GalNAc.
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