The sarcosine oxidase gene was randomly mutated, and F103V, which showed altered specificity, was screened with the plate assay. Five different mutants at position 103 were also constructed. Each mutant exhibited a rather striking change in substrate specificity, except for F103W. The optimum pH was also shifted, depending on the substrate.

Monomeric sarcosine oxidase (MSOX) is a flavoprotein D-amino acid oxidase with reported sarcosine and oxygen activation sites on the re and si faces of the flavin ring, respectively. O2 transport routes to the catalytic interior are not well understood and are difficult to ascertain solely from MSOX crystal structures. A composite free-energy method known as single-sweep is used to map and ther...

Our previous work described a clear loss of Escherichia coli (E. coli) membrane integrity after incubation with glycine or its N-methylated derivatives N-methylglycine (sarcosine) and N,N-dimethylglycine (DMG), but not N,N,N-trimethylglycine (betaine), under alkaline stress conditions. The current study offers a thorough viability analysis, based on a combination of real-time physiological tech...

Methyltransferases play crucial roles in many cellular processes, and various regulatory mechanisms have evolved to control their activities. For methyltransferases involved in biosynthetic pathways, regulation via feedback inhibition is a commonly employed strategy to prevent excessive accumulation of the pathways' end products. To date, no biosynthetic methyltransferases have been characteriz...

The aerobic dehydrogenation of the N-methyl group of sarcosine initiates an energy-requiring reduction of diphosphopyridine nucleotide in intact mitochondria. The formation of DPNH can be measured both spectrophotometrically and by the reduction of acetoacetate. Except in the presence of uncouplers, such as Dicumarol and arsenate, reduction of DPN by sarcosine does not require added adenosine t...

Acetaminophen and its glucuronide, sulfate, N-acetyl-L-cysteinyl, and L-cysteinyl metabolites can be rapidly detected by 1H NMR spectroscopy of intact, untreated human urine. Study of the time course of excretion of these metabolites in five clinically normal men after ingestion of the usual 1-g therapeutic dose of the drug showed that the mean 24-h excretion of the drug and these metabolites a...

1,3-dipolar cycloaddition reaction of 1 mol or 2 mol of dibenzalaceton with 1 mol of non-stabilized azomethinylides generated in situ by decarboxylative condensation of isatin and proline or sarcosine give the novel new spiro-oxindolo(pyrrolizidines/ pyrrolidines) instead of bis-spirooxindolo( pyrrolizidines/ pyrrolidines).