2016.12.13

World’s first proof of functional characterization of protein

A group of researchers, including Waseda University’s Professor Kuniki Kino and Junior researcher Ryotaro Hara, became the first ever to prove that aconitase x catalyzes the dehydration of cis-3-hydroxy-L-proline to Δ1-pyrroline-2-carboxylate. Aconitase x was the only protein in the aconitase superfamily whose function was not explained. In the research, the team focused on the gene context of the bacterial genome rather than the amino acid sequence similarity to estimate the potential substrate. Furthermore, the properties shown by aconitase x were found to be significantly different form other aconitase superfamily members.

Learning more about functions of unknown proteins help understand biological evolution and how biological systems such as metabolic pathways have been formed, and this research progresses these efforts.＜More＞

A paper on this research was published in Nature Publishing Group’s online science magazine Scientific Reports on December 8.

Title: Functional characterization of aconitase X as a cis-3-hydroxy-L-proline dehydratase.