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Published on: August 8, 2014
Construction of a pathway to C50-ε-carotene
Yusuke Otani1, Takashi Maoka2, Shigeko Kawai-Noma1
1Department of Applied Chemistry and Biotechnology, Chiba University, Chiba, Japan.
Abstract:
Substrate tolerance of bacterial cyclases has been demonstrated in various contexts, but little is known about that of plant cyclases. Here, we tested two plant ε-cyclases to convert C50-lycopene, which we previously established by rounds of directed evolution. Unlike bacterial β-cyclases, two-end cyclase from lettuce exhibited complete specificity against this molecule, indicating that this enzyme has some mechanism that exerts size-specificity. Arabidopsis one-end cyclase At-y2 showed detectable activity to C50-lycopene. Interestingly, we found that it functions as a two-end cyclase in a C50 context. Based on this observation, a possible model for substrate discrimination of this enzyme is proposed.
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