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Updated: May 17, 2026

Identification of Fatty Acids in Bacillus cereus
Published on: December 5, 2016
Identification of a residue affecting fatty alcohol selectivity in wax ester synthase
Brett M Barney1, Rachel L Mann, Janet M Ohlert
1Department of Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering and BioTechnology Institute, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, Minnesota, USA. bbarney@umn.edu
Abstract:
The terminal enzyme in the bacterial wax ester biosynthetic pathway is the bifunctional wax ester synthase/acyl-coenzyme A:diacylglycerol acyltransferase (WS/DGAT), which utilizes a fatty alcohol and a fatty acyl-coenzyme A (CoA) to synthesize the corresponding wax ester. In this report, we identify a specific residue in WS/DGAT enzymes obtained from Marinobacter aquaeolei VT8 and Acinetobacter baylyi that alters fatty alcohol selectivity and kinetic parameters when modified to alternative residues.
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