Bacteria amino acid synthesis

The most responsive regulation of amino acid synthesis takes place through feedback inhibition of the first reaction in a sequence by the end product of the pathway. This first reaction is usually irreversible and catalyzed by an allosteric enzyme. As an example, Figure 22-21 shows the allosteric regulation of isoleucine synthesis from threonine (detailed in Fig. 22-15). The end product, isoleucine, is an allosteric inhibitor of the first reaction in the sequence. In bacteria, such allosteric modulation of amino acid synthesis occurs as a minute-to-minute response. 

Attenuation. A major mechanism of feedback repression, known as attenuation, depends not upon a repressor protein but upon control of premature termination. It was first worked out in detail by Yanofsky et al. for the trp operon of E. coli and related bacteria.184 186 Accumulation of tryptophan in the cell represses the trp biosynthetic operon by the action of accumulating tryptophanyl-tRNATlP, which specifically induces termination in the trp operon. Other specific "charged" arnino-acyl-tRNA molecules induce termination at other amino acid synthesis operons. 

One example of the adaptation of bacteria to an unfavourable environment is their response to amino acid starvation. In an environment rich in amino acids, cells do not produce enzymes of amino acid synthesis. However, in the case of a nutritional downshift in the environment, cells must use their own proteins as sources of amino acids for building enzymes required for amino acid biosynthesis pathways (Gottesman and Maurizi, 2001). 

Although minor differences between the synthetic capacities for amino acids in Tetrahymena and a mammal, such as the rat, do exist, the many points of similarity are striking. One cannot help thinking that the animal enzymatic pattern for amino acid synthesis must have become established very early in the evolution of the whole kingdom. Those organisms with no animal affinities (phytoflagellates, bacteria, molds) may be quite low in synthetic capacities (e.g., the lactic acid bacteria), but there is no consistent pattern to be observed. Where a true animal has been carefully studied, the pattern is always largely the same. 

However, formation of the specific repressor by the regulator gene is evidently only one of the possible methods of repression of transcription of operons. Other methods of repression of the structural genes in bacteria have recently been found (Richmond, 1967 Bretscher, 1968) and the repressor function of aminoacyl-transfer RNAs in repression of the enzymes of amino acid synthesis has been studied in more detail (Freundlich, 1967). 

In bacteria, each step in fatty-acid sjmthesis is catalyzed by separate enzymes. In vertebrates, however, fatty-acid synthesis is catalyzed by a large, multienzyme complex called a synthase that contains two identical subunits of 2505 amino acids each and catalyzes all steps in the pathway. An overview of fatty-acid biosynthesis is shown in Figure 29.5. 

Feedback inhibition of amino acid transporters by amino acids synthesized by the cells might be responsible for the well known fact that blocking protein synthesis by cycloheximide in Saccharomyces cerevisiae inhibits the uptake of most amino acids [56]. Indeed, under these conditions, endogenous amino acids continue to accumulate. This situation, which precludes studying amino acid transport in yeast in the presence of inhibitors of protein synthesis, is very different from that observed in bacteria, where amino acid uptake is commonly measured in the presence of chloramphenicol in order to isolate the uptake process from further metabolism of accumulated substances. In yeast, when nitrogen starvation rather than cycloheximide is used to block protein synthesis, this leads to very high uptake activity. This fact supports the feedback inhibition interpretation of the observed cycloheximide effect. 

The difference in the hydrogen ion electrochemical potential, formed in bacteria similarly as in mitochondria, can be used not only for synthesis of ATP but also for the electrogenic (connected with net charge transfer) symport of sugars and amino acids, for the electroneutral symport of some anions and for the sodium ion/hydrogen ion antiport, which, for example, maintains a low Na+ activity in the cells of the bacterium Escherichia coli. 

In mammals and in the majority of bacteria, cobalamin regulates DNA synthesis indirectly through its effect on a step in folate metabolism, catalyzing the synthesis of methionine from homocysteine and 5-methyltetrahydrofolate via two methyl transfer reactions. This cytoplasmic reaction is catalyzed by methionine synthase (5-methyltetrahydrofolate-homocysteine methyl-transferase), which requires methyl cobalamin (MeCbl) (253), one of the two known coenzyme forms of the complex, as its cofactor. 5 -Deoxyadenosyl cobalamin (AdoCbl) (254), the other coenzyme form of cobalamin, occurs within mitochondria. This compound is a cofactor for the enzyme methylmalonyl-CoA mutase, which is responsible for the conversion of T-methylmalonyl CoA to succinyl CoA. This reaction is involved in the metabolism of odd chain fatty acids via propionic acid, as well as amino acids isoleucine, methionine, threonine, and valine. 

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