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Published on: January 13, 2017
Structure of the Bacillus anthracis dTDP-l-rhamnose biosynthetic pathway enzyme: dTDP-α-d-glucose 4,6-dehydratase,
Trevor Gokey1, Andrei S Halavaty2, George Minasov2
1Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, San Francisco State University, USA.
Abstract:
Many bacteria require l-rhamnose as a key cell wall component. This sugar is transferred to the cell wall using an activated donor dTDP-l-rhamnose, which is produced by the dTDP-l-rhamnose biosynthetic pathway. We determined the crystal structure of the second enzyme of this pathway dTDP-α-d-glucose 4,6-dehydratase (RfbB) from Bacillus anthracis. Interestingly, RfbB only crystallized in the presence of the third enzyme of the pathway RfbC; however, RfbC was not present in the crystal. Our work represents the first complete structural characterization of the four proteins of this pathway in a single Gram-positive bacterium.
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