Diversity and versatility of the Thermotoga maritima sugar kinome.

ABSTRACT: Sugar phosphorylation is an indispensable committed step in a large variety of sugar catabolic pathways, which are major suppliers of carbon and energy in heterotrophic species. Specialized sugar kinases that are indispensable for most of these pathways can be utilized as signature enzymes for the reconstruction of carbohydrate utilization machinery from microbial genomic and metagenomic data. Sugar kinases occur in several structurally distinct families with various partially overlapping as well as yet unknown substrate specificities that often cannot be accurately assigned by homology-based techniques. A subsystems-based metabolic reconstruction combined with the analysis of genome context and followed by experimental testing of predicted gene functions is a powerful approach of function

SUBMITTER: Rodionova IA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3458674 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature