Aminoimidazole ribonucleotide synthetase

Aimi,J., Qiu, H., Williams, J., Zalkin, H., and Dixon, J. E. (1990). De novo purine nucleotide biosynthesis cloning of human and avian cDNAs encoding the trifunctional glycinam-ide ribonucleotide synthetase-aminoimidazole ribonucleotide synthetase-glycinamide ribonucleotide transformylase by functional complementation in E. colt. Nucleic Acids Res., 18, 6665-6672. 

E.J. Mueller, S. Oh, E. Kavalerchik, T.J. Kappock, E. Meyer, C. Li, S.E. Ealick, and J. Stubbe. 1999. Investigation of the ATP binding site of Escherichia coli aminoimidazole ribonucleotide synthetase using affinity labeling and site-directed mutagenesis Biochemistry 38 9831-9839. (PubMed)... 

Phosphoribosyl-1-pyrophosphate synthetase 2 aminophosphoribosyltransferase 3 phospho-ribosylglycinamide synthetase 4 glycinamide ribonucleotide transformylase 5 iV-formylglycin-amidine ribonucleotide amidoligase 6 5-aminoimidazole ribonucleotide synthetase 7 5-amino-imidazole ribonucleotide carboxylase 8 5-aminoimidazole-4-iV-succinocarboxamide ribonucleotide synthetase 9 adenylosuccinate lyase 10 5-aminoimidazole-4-carboxamide ribonucleotide transformylase 11 inosinicase... 

This chemistry seems less probable, however, given the structural similarity of the smPurL proteinand aminoimidazole ribonucleotide (AIR) synthetase (PurM), another enzyme in the purine biosynthetic pathway that is known to form an iminophosphate intermediate (Scheme 16). Under in vitro conditions, FGAR-AT can use ammonia as an alternate nitrogen source when glutamine is absent. 

Adenylosuccinate formed by adenylosuccinate synthetase is cleaved by adenylosuccinate lyase to form AMP. The reaction steps are illustrated in Fig. 1. Included in the sequence is the additional reaction catalyzed by AMP deaminase. These three enzymes have been suggested to function in a cyclic process termed the purine nucleotide cycle 7,8). The two-step conversion of IMP to AMP is very similar to both the conversion of citrulline to arginine, which involves formation of argininosuccinate as an intermediate, and formation of 5-amino-imidazole 4-carboxamide ribonucleotide from 5-aminoimidazole 4-carboxylate ribonucleotide as part of IMP biosynthesis. Adenylosuccinate lyase is a dual function enzyme catalyzing the cleavage of both adenylosuccinate and 5-aminoimidazole 4-N-succinocarboxamide ribonucleotide. 

---