ePrints

Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains possess functional cellulases

Lookup NU author(s): Gavin Pell, Emeritus Professor Harry Gilbert

Downloads

Full text for this publication is not currently held within this repository. Alternative links are provided below where available.

Abstract

The genomes of various Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains encode proteins that do not appear to play a role in the growth or survival of the bacterium in its mammalian host, including some implicated in plant cell wall breakdown. Here we show that M. tuberculosis H37Rv does indeed possess a functional cellulase. The x-ray crystal structure of this enzyme, in ligand complex forms, from 1.9 to 1.1Å resolution, reveals a highly conserved substrate-binding cleft, which affords similar, and unusual, distortion of the substrate at the catalytic center. The endoglucanase activity, together with the existence of a putative membrane-associated crystalline polysaccharide-binding protein, may reflect the ancestral soil origin of the Mycobacterium or hint at a previously unconsidered environmental niche. © 2005 by The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Inc.

Publication metadata

Author(s): Varrot A, Leydier S, Pell G, Macdonald JM, Stick RV, Henrissat B, Gilbert HJ, Davies GJ

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Journal of Biological Chemistry

Year: 2005

Volume: 280

Issue: 21

Pages: 20181-20184

ISSN (print): 0021-9258

ISSN (electronic): 1083-351X

Publisher: American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Inc.

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1074/jbc.C500142200

DOI: 10.1074/jbc.C500142200

PubMed id: 15824123

Altmetrics

Share