Pentose phosphate isomerase yeast

The discovery of ribulose-5-phosphate has posed the problem of whether this compound or the aldopentose phosphate is the immediate substrate for cleavage to triose phosphate. An enzyme preparation has been isolated from yeast by de la Haba and Racker, which will convert ribulose-5-phosphate to triose phosphate but which will produce this compound from ribose-5-phosphate only after a marked lag. The could be eliminated by another protein fraction from yeast presumably containing the pentose phosphate isomerase. However, it was observed that ribulose-5-phosphate alone is less readily cleaved to triose phosphate than is the reaction mixture of ribose-fi-phosphate and pentose isomerase. 

Most recently the enzyme of yeast catalyzing the cleavage of ribulose-5-phosphate has been crystallized and designated transketolase. " The pentose phosphate isomerase has been removed from the crystalline transketolase, which maintains its activity on ribulose-5-phosphate. The purified enzyme also catalyzes the formation of the ketopentose phosphate from glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate and a 2-carbon donor such as hy-droxypyruvate. Transketolase contains thiamine pyrophosphate as a coenzyme. 

This intractable problem may now be close to being solved. A Saccharomyces species that expressed the xylose isomerase gene from an anaerobic fungus was found to grow slowly on pentoses [29]. Improvement resulted from a combination of rational engineering - overexpression of the pentose phosphate-converting enzymes (see Fig. 8.5) - and classical strain improvement [30]. The authors conclude The kinetics of xylose fermentation are no longer a bottleneck in the industrial production of ethanol with yeast ... 

It is D-fructofuranose, not D-fructopyranose, that is utilized, at least by bakers yeast.303,304 As with D-glucose, the initial step in the intracellular utilization of either D-fructofuranose305 or D-mannose is phosphorylation by the constitutive hexokinase306 (see Ref. 307 for a review). The D-fructose 6-phosphate formed is an intermediate of both the glycolytic pathway and the pentose cycle. D-Mannose phosphate isomerase (EC 5.3.1.8) effects the conversion of D-mannose 6-phosphate into D-fructose 6-phosphate,308,309 or D-mannose 6-phosphate is epimerized to D-glucose 6-phosphate.308... 

Different pathways are available in nature for metabolism of arabinose and xylose which are converted to xylulose 5-phosphate (intermediate com-poimd) to enter the pentose phosphate pathway as shown in Figure 10.5. In yeasts, xylose is first reduced by xylose reductase to xylitol, which in turn is oxidized to xylulose by xylitol dehydrogenase. In bacteria and some anaerobic fungi, xylose isomerase is responsible for direct conversion of xylose to xylulose. Xylulose is finally phosphorylated to xylulose-5-phos-phate by xylulokinase. In fungi, L-arabinose is reduced to L-arabitol (by arabinose reductase), L-xylulose (by arabitol dehydrogenase), xylitol (by L-xylulose reductase). Xylitol is finally converted to xylulose (by xylitol dehydrogenase), whose activity is also part of xylose utilization pathways. In bacteria, L-arabinose is converted to L-ribulose (by L-arabinose isomerase), L-ribulose-5-P (by L-ribulokinase) and finally D-xylulose-5-P (by L-ribulose-5-P 4-epimerase) (Bettiga et al., 2008). 

---