Association with protein overexpression

The enzyme catalyzing the formation of retinal 2 by means of central cleavage of P-carotene 1 has been known to exist in many tissues for quite some time. Only recently, however, the active protein was identified in chicken intestinal mucosa (3) following an improvement of a novel isolation and purification protocol and was cloned in Escherichia coli and BHK cells (4,5). Iron was identified as the only metal ion associated with the (overexpressed) protein in a 1 1 stoichiometry and since a chromophore is absent in the protein heme coordination and/or iron complexation by tyrosine can be excluded. The structure of the catalytic center remains to be elucidated by X-ray crystallography but from the information available it was predicted that the active site contains a mononuclear iron complex presumably consisting of histidine residues. This suggestion has been confirmed by... 

The fact that inclusion bodies are associated with the overexpression of cytoplasmic proteins, has led to the assumption that aggregation can be circumvented by secretion. However, Georgiou et al, have shown that overexpression of a periplasmic protein native to E. coli such as (J-lactamase can also result in... 

Thymidylate synthase (TS) is the rate-limiting enzyme in the DNA synthetic pathway and the target for 5-FU and folate analogs (Figure 14.3). Compared to normal tissues, TS is often overexpressed in tumor cells, probably as a result of tumor suppression loss of function, gene amplification or other mechanisms. Acute induction of TS protein as well as stable amplification of TS-specific genes may be associated with resistance to fluoropyrimidine derivatives [118, 119], and an inverse correlation between tumor TS expression and clinical response was found [120-122]. 

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