Bacterial Phosphate Granules Contain Cyclic Polyphosphates: Evidence from ³¹P Solid-State NMR.

ABSTRACT: Polyphosphates (polyPs) are ubiquitous polymers in living organisms from bacteria to mammals. They serve a wide variety of biological functions, ranging from energy storage to stress response. In the last two decades, polyPs have been primarily viewed as linear polymers with varying chain lengths. However, recent biochemical data show that small metaphosphates, cyclic oligomers of [PO₃]^(-), can bind to the enzymes ribonuclease A and NAD kinase, raising the question of whether metaphosphates can occur naturally as products of biological activity. Before the 1980s, metaphosphates had been reported in polyPs extracted from various organisms, but these results are considered artifactual due to the extraction and purification protocols. Here, we employ nondestructive

SUBMITTER: Mandala VS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7755298 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature