A common structural blueprint for plant UDP-sugar-producing pyrophosphorylases.

Substrate Specificity and Inhibitor Sensitivity of Plant UDP-Sugar Producing Pyrophosphorylases

UDP-sugars are essential precursors for glycosylation reactions producing cell wall polysaccharides, sucrose, glycoproteins, glycolipids, etc. Primary mechanisms of UDP sugar formation involve the action of at least three distinct pyrophosphorylases using UTP and sugar-1-P as substrates. Here, substrate specificities of barley and Arabidopsis (two isozymes) UDP-glucose pyrophosphorylases (UGPas...

Identification and characterization of inhibitors of UDP-glucose and UDP-sugar pyrophosphorylases for in vivo studies.

UDP-sugars serve as ultimate precursors in hundreds of glycosylation reactions (e.g. for protein and lipid glycosylation, synthesis of sucrose, cell wall polysaccharides, etc.), underlying an important role of UDP-sugar-producing enzymes in cellular metabolism. However, genetic studies on mechanisms of UDP-sugar formation were frequently hampered by reproductive impairment of the resulting muta...

A luminescence-based assay of UDP-sugar producing pyrophosphorylases†

Leishmania UDP-sugar pyrophosphorylase: the missing link in galactose salvage?

The Leishmania parasite glycocalyx is rich in galactose-containing glycoconjugates that are synthesized by specific glycosyltransferases that use UDP-galactose as a glycosyl donor. UDP-galactose biosynthesis is thought to be predominantly a de novo process involving epimerization of the abundant nucleotide sugar UDP-glucose by the UDP-glucose 4-epimerase, although galactose salvage from the env...

Update on Nucleotide Sugar Synthesis UDP-Sugar Pyrophosphorylase: A New Old Mechanism for Sugar Activation

Simple sugars (e.g. Glc, Gal) are the building blocks of disaccharides (e.g. Suc) and polysaccharides (e.g. cellulose, hemicellulose). To produce disaccharides and polysaccharides, a given simple sugar needs to be “activated.” This activation involves the addition of a nucleoside-diphosphate group to a sugar, resulting in the formation of a nucleotide sugar. Such an activated sugar can then be ...