Publications

• Erythritol feeds the pentose phosphate pathway via three new isomerases leading to D-erythrose-4-phosphate in Brucella.

  Barbier T., Collard F., Zuniga-Ripa A., Moriyon I., Godard T., Becker J., Wittmann C., Van Schaftingen E., Letesson J.J.

  Erythritol is an important nutrient for several α-2 Proteobacteria, including N2-fixing plant endosymbionts and Brucella, a worldwide pathogen that finds this four-carbon polyol in genital tissues. Erythritol metabolism involves phosphorylation to L-erythritol-4-phosphate by the kinase EryA and ox ... >> More

  Erythritol is an important nutrient for several α-2 Proteobacteria, including N2-fixing plant endosymbionts and Brucella, a worldwide pathogen that finds this four-carbon polyol in genital tissues. Erythritol metabolism involves phosphorylation to L-erythritol-4-phosphate by the kinase EryA and oxidation of the latter to L-3-tetrulose 4-phosphate by the dehydrogenase EryB. It is accepted that further steps involve oxidation by the putative dehydrogenase EryC and subsequent decarboxylation to yield triose-phosphates. Accordingly, growth on erythritol as the sole C source should require aldolase and fructose-1,6-bisphosphatase to produce essential hexose-6-monophosphate. However, we observed that a mutant devoid of fructose-1,6-bisphosphatases grew normally on erythritol and that EryC, which was assumed to be a dehydrogenase, actually belongs to the xylose isomerase superfamily. Moreover, we found that TpiA2 and RpiB, distant homologs of triose phosphate isomerase and ribose 5-phosphate isomerase B, were necessary, as previously shown for Rhizobium. By using purified recombinant enzymes, we demonstrated that L-3-tetrulose-4-phosphate was converted to D-erythrose 4-phosphate through three previously unknown isomerization reactions catalyzed by EryC (tetrulose-4-phosphate racemase), TpiA2 (D-3-tetrulose-4-phosphate isomerase; renamed EryH), and RpiB (D-erythrose-4-phosphate isomerase; renamed EryI), a pathway fully consistent with the isotopomer distribution of the erythrose-4-phosphate-derived amino acids phenylalanine and tyrosine obtained from bacteria grown on (13)C-labeled erythritol. D-erythrose-4-phosphate is then converted by enzymes of the pentose phosphate pathway to glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate and fructose 6-phosphate, thus bypassing fructose-1,6-bisphosphatase. This is the first description to our knowledge of a route feeding carbohydrate metabolism exclusively via D-erythrose 4-phosphate, a pathway that may provide clues to the preferential metabolism of erythritol by Brucella and its role in pathogenicity. << Less

  Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 111:17815-17820(2014) [PubMed] [EuropePMC]

  This publication is cited by 3 other entries.

• A general strategy for the discovery of metabolic pathways: D-threitol, L-threitol, and erythritol utilization in Mycobacterium smegmatis.

  Huang H., Carter M.S., Vetting M.W., Al-Obaidi N., Patskovsky Y., Almo S.C., Gerlt J.A.

  We describe a general integrated bioinformatic and experimental strategy to discover the in vitro enzymatic activities and in vivo functions (metabolic pathways) of uncharacterized enzymes discovered in microbial genome projects using the ligand specificities of the solute binding proteins (SBPs) ... >> More

  We describe a general integrated bioinformatic and experimental strategy to discover the in vitro enzymatic activities and in vivo functions (metabolic pathways) of uncharacterized enzymes discovered in microbial genome projects using the ligand specificities of the solute binding proteins (SBPs) for ABC transporters. Using differential scanning fluorimetry, we determined that the SBP for an ABC transporter encoded by the genome of Mycobacterium smegmatis is stabilized by d-threitol. Using sequence similarity networks and genome neighborhood networks to guide selection of target proteins for pathway enzymes, we applied both in vitro and in vivo experimental approaches to discover novel pathways for catabolism of d-threitol, l-threitol, and erythritol. << Less

  J. Am. Chem. Soc. 137:14570-14573(2015) [PubMed] [EuropePMC]

  This publication is cited by 5 other entries.

• Functional assignment of multiple catabolic pathways for D-apiose.

  Carter M.S., Zhang X., Huang H., Bouvier J.T., Francisco B.S., Vetting M.W., Al-Obaidi N., Bonanno J.B., Ghosh A., Zallot R.G., Andersen H.M., Almo S.C., Gerlt J.A.

  Colocation of the genes encoding ABC, TRAP, and TCT transport systems and catabolic pathways for the transported ligand provides a strategy for discovering novel microbial enzymes and pathways. We screened solute-binding proteins (SBPs) for ABC transport systems and identified three that bind D-ap ... >> More

  Colocation of the genes encoding ABC, TRAP, and TCT transport systems and catabolic pathways for the transported ligand provides a strategy for discovering novel microbial enzymes and pathways. We screened solute-binding proteins (SBPs) for ABC transport systems and identified three that bind D-apiose, a branched pentose in the cell walls of higher plants. Guided by sequence similarity networks (SSNs) and genome neighborhood networks (GNNs), the identities of the SBPs enabled the discovery of four catabolic pathways for D-apiose with eleven previously unknown reactions. The new enzymes include D-apionate oxidoisomerase, which catalyzes hydroxymethyl group migration, as well as 3-oxo-isoapionate-4-phosphate decarboxylase and 3-oxo-isoapionate-4-phosphate transcarboxylase/hydrolase, which are RuBisCO-like proteins (RLPs). The web tools for generating SSNs and GNNs are publicly accessible ( http://efi.igb.illinois.edu/efi-est/ ), so similar 'genomic enzymology' strategies for discovering novel pathways can be used by the community. << Less

  Nat. Chem. Biol. 14:696-705(2018) [PubMed] [EuropePMC]

  This publication is cited by 13 other entries.