The potential to produce biogenic amines was investigated for 56 coagulase-negative staphylococci isolated during industrial Spanish dry-cured ham processes. The presence of biogenic amines from bacterial cultures was determined by thin-layer chromatography. The percentage of strains that decarboxylated amino acids was very low (3.6%). The only staphylococci with aminogenic capacity were an his...

Pyridoxal phosphate is the coenzyme of various decarboxylases involved in the formation of monoamine neurotransmitters such as gamma-aminobutyric acid, serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine. Adult male Sprague-Dawley rats placed on a pyridoxine-deficient diet for 8 weeks showed significant hypertension compared with pyridoxine-supplemented controls. Hypothalamic contents of pyridoxal phosphat...

Depleting oil reserves and growing environmental concerns have necessitated the development of sustainable processes to fuels and chemicals. Here we have developed a general metabolic platform in E. coli to biosynthesize carboxylic acids. By engineering selectivity of 2-ketoacid decarboxylases and screening for promiscuous aldehyde dehydrogenases, synthetic pathways were constructed to produce ...

Histamine is an important chemical mediator for a wide variety of physiological reactions. L-histidine decarboxylase (HDC) is the primary enzyme responsible for histamine synthesis and produces histamine from histidine in a one-step reaction. In this study, we determined the crystal structure of human HDC (hHDC) complexed with the inhibitor histidine methyl ester. This structure shows the detai...

Chlorella Virus PBCV-1 encodes an unusual arginine decarboxylase that is a close homolog of eukaryotic ornithine decarboxylases. Rahul Shah, Catherine S. Coleman, Kiran Mir, Jeffrey Baldwin, James L. Van Etten, Nick V. Grishin, Anthony E. Pegg, Bruce A. Stanley and Margaret A. Phillips* Departments of Pharmacology and Biochemistry, The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, ...