Glycine synthesis

GLYCINE AS A CENTRAL NEUROTRANSMITTER GLYCINE SYNTHESIS, UPTAKE AND DEGRADATION 298... 

It plays a vital role in various intracellular reactions e.g. conversion of serine to glycine, synthesis of thymidylate, synthesis of purines, histidine metabolism etc. Due to folic acid deficiency these reactions are affected. 

N5,jV10-Methylenetetrahydrofolate (methylene-THF) is one of the folic acid coenzymes (Sec. 15.7). Note that this reaction is readily reversible, and in fact, net flux is usually in the direction of glycine synthesis. Thus this amino acid can arise from glucose, and it does so via serine. 

Cabarrocas G, Rafel S, Ventura M, Villalgordo JM (2000) A new approach toward the stereoselective synthesis of novel quinolyl glycines synthesis of the enantiomerically pure quinolyl- -amino alcohol precursors. Synlett 595-598... 

The equilibrium constant for Eq. (6) is 4.6, slightly in favor of glycine synthesis (Huennekens and Osborn, 1959). There is evidence from bacteria and animals showing that much glycine is made from serine and that serine hydroxymethyltransferase is involved. 

Puck and his colleagues have selected from mutagenized Chinese hamster cells in culture, many glycine auxotrophs, all of which fall into one of four complementation classes [105]. Each class is apparently due to a different specific enzyme defect in the pathway of glycine synthesis [105]. Although no regulatory mutants were reportedly found, the techniques are now available [106,107] to begin such a search. 

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