Bacterial metabolism, thiamine

Most known thiamin diphosphate-dependent reactions (Table 14-2) can be derived from the five halfreactions, a through e, shown in Fig. 14-3. Each halfreaction is an a cleavage which leads to a thiamin- bound enamine (center, Fig. 14-3) The decarboxylation of an a-oxo acid to an aldehyde is represented by step b followed by a in reverse. The most studied enzyme catalyzing a reaction of this type is yeast pyruvate decarboxylase, an enzyme essential to alcoholic fermentation (Fig. 10-3). There are two 250-kDa isoenzyme forms, one an a4 tetramer and one with an ( P)2 quaternary structure. The isolation of ohydroxyethylthiamin diphosphate from reaction mixtures of this enzyme with pyruvate52 provided important verification of the mechanisms of Eqs. 14-14,14-15. Other decarboxylases produce aldehydes in specialized metabolic pathways indolepyruvate decarboxylase126 in the biosynthesis of the plant hormone indoIe-3-acetate and ben-zoylformate decarboxylase in the mandelate pathway of bacterial metabolism (Chapter 25).1243/127... 

Evidence from a number of sources indicated that pentose phosphates were metabolized in a series of reactions that resulted in the formation of hexose monophosphates and hexose diphosphates. Several enzyme steps are involved in these transformations. The reaction between D-ribulose 5-phosphate and D-ribose 5-phosphate to form D-sedoheptulose 7-phosphate and D-glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate is catalyzed by an enzyme known as transketolase (91). This enzyme is found in plant, animal, and bacterial cells. Thiamine pyrophosphate (TPP) and Mg ions are required as cofactors. The mechanism of the reaction was suggested (92) as shown in reaction (28). 

Neal, R. A. Bacterial Metabolism of Thiamine III. Metabolism of Thiamine to 3-(2 -Methyl-4 -Amino-5 -Pyrimidylmethyl)-4-Methyl-thiazole-5-aceticAcid(Thiamine Acetic Acid) by a Flavoprotein isolated from a soil Microorganism. J. Biol. Chem. 245, 2599(1970). 

Transketolase (EC 2.2.1.1) an enzyme that catalyses transketolation, an important process of carbohydrate metabolism, especially in the Pentose phosphate cycle (see) and Calvin cycle (see). T. has been found in a wide variety of cells and tissues, including mammalian liver, green plants and many bacterial species. The enzyme contains divalent metal cations and the coenzyme, thiamin pyrophosphate. Transketolation involves transfer of a C2-unit (often called active glycolaldehyde or a ketol moiety) from a ketose to Cl of an aldose. Only ketoses with L-configuration at C3 and preferably irons configuration on the next carbon (i.e. Cl, 2, 3 and preferably 4 as in fructose) can serve as donors of the C2-unit. The acceptor is always an aldose. Thins-ketolation is reversible. Details of the reaction in which xylulose S-phosphate serves as the donor of... 

Human requirements for thiamine depend upon the body weight or size, the total metabolism or calories utilized, the maximal weight of the species, the amount of fat in the diet, the amount of thiamine being synthesized by bacterial action, the presence of antithiamine, the presence in food of enzymes destroying the vitamin, and various stress conditions. 

Thus a thiamine derivative plays a metabolic role as cocarboxylase, which has been found to be inactivated by a specific phosphatase of yeast (122,123). The inactivation was inhibited by thiamine itself and to a lesser degree by thiamine monophosphate and the pyrimidine constituent of the thiamine molecule. Synthesis and breakdown of thiamine by Phycomyces species have also been studied (9,45,98). Pyridoxine derivatives are now known to catalyze two t3T)cs of bacterial reactions, involving transamination and decarboxylation of amino acids (4,32,35,59). Interconversion between members of the group of substances of natural occurrence which are related to pyridoxine has been observed in microorganisms and appears likely to afford a series of changes comparable to those observed in nicotinic acid dreivatives. Production of folic acid from chemically defined precursors by bacterial suspensions has also been observed (110,111). 

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