Construction of a pathway to C50-ε-carotene.

Otani, Yusuke; Maoka, Takashi; Kawai-Noma, Shigeko; Saito, Kyoichi; Umeno, Daisuke · PLoS One · 2019

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

Substrate tolerance of bacterial cyclases has been demonstrated in various contexts, but little is known about that of plant cyclases. Here, we tested two plant ε-cyclases to convert C50-lycopene, which we previously established by rounds of directed evolution. Unlike bacterial β-cyclases, two-end cyclase from lettuce exhibited complete specificity against this molecule, indicating that this enzyme has some mechanism that exerts size-specificity. Arabidopsis one-end cyclase At-y2 showed detectable activity to C50-lycopene. Interestingly, we found that it functions as a two-end cyclase in a C50 context. Based on this observation, a possible model for substrate discrimination of this enzyme is proposed.

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