Opine dehydrogenases catalyze the reductive condensation of pyruvate with L-amino acids. Biochemical characterization of alanopine dehydrogenase from Arenicola marina revealed that this enzyme is highly specific for L-alanine. Unbiased molecular dynamics simulations with a homology model of alanopine dehydrogenase captured the binding of L-alanine diffusing from solvent to a putative binding re...

New members of the order Thermotogales were isolated from nonvolcanically heated geothermal environments, including oil fields and waters of the Great Artesian Basin of Australia, thereby extending their known habitats, previously recognized primarily as volcanic. The hyperthermophilic and thermophilic members of Thermotogales of volcanic origin, together with the recently described nonvolcanic...

A new method to assay the enzyme, leucine aminopeptidase (LAP; L-leucyl-peptide hydrolase.-3.4.1.1), is described. The technic is an extension of the conventional glutamic-pyruvic transaminase (GPT) reaction. Serum LAP is allowed to react with the substrate L-leucyl-L-alanine to quantitatively generate alanine. This alanine, in the presence of excess -ketoglutaric acid and GPT, rapidly forms py...

The stoichiometric properties of Na+- and H+-dependent L-alanine transporters recently identified in luminal-membrane vesicles prepared from proximal convoluted tubules (pars convoluta) and proximal straight tubules (pars recta) of rabbit kidney were studied. We provide indirect evidence suggesting that one Na+ and one H+ ion are co-transported with the L-alanine molecule via Na+-dependent and ...