Pinene is an active natural monoterpene from plants and has important applications in flavorings, fragrances,and pesticides. Especially, pinene dimers are regarded as renewable fuels with high density. However, the microbial production was limited by low activity synthase. In this study, synthase improved fusion linker optimization chaperon coexpression. To construct pathway Saccharomyces cerev...

Farnesyl diphosphate synthase (FPPS) is a key enzyme in isoprenoid biosynthesis which supplies sesquiterpene precursors for several classes of essential metabolites including sterols, dolichols, ubiquinones and carotenoids as well as substrates for farnesylation and geranylgeranylation of proteins. It catalyzes the sequential head-to-tail condensation of two molecules of isopentenyl diphosphate...

In order to investigate the substrate binding feature of undecaprenyl diphosphate synthase from Micrococcus luteus B-P 26 with respect to farnesyl diphosphate and a reaction intermediate, (Z,E,E)-geranylgeranyl diphosphate, we examined the reactivity of artificial substrate analogs, 3-desmethyl farnesyl diphosphate and 3-desmethyl Z-geranylgeranyl diphosphate, which lack the methyl group at the...

In order to develop synthetic methods for biologically active homoallylic terpene sulfates, we examined the applicability and substrate specificities of several prenyl chain elongating enzymes with respect to 4-methyl-4-pentenyl diphosphate (homoIPP). The reaction of dimethylallyl diphosphate with homoIPP by use of Bacillus stearothermophilus (all-trans)-farnesyl diphosphate synthase resulted i...

The structure of ent-copalyl diphosphate synthase reveals three α-helical domains (α, β and γ), as also observed in the related diterpene cyclase taxadiene synthase. However, active sites are located at the interface of the βγ domains in ent-copalyl diphosphate synthase but exclusively in the α domain of taxadiene synthase. Modular domain architecture in plant diterpene cyclases enables the evo...

We have identified an omega,E,E-farnesyl diphosphate (omega,E,E-FPP) synthase, encoded by the open reading frame Rv3398c, from Mycobacterium tuberculosis that is unique among reported FPP synthases in that it does not contain the type I (eukaryotic) or the type II (eubacterial) omega,E,E-FPP synthase signature motif. Instead, it has a structural motif similar to that of the type I geranylgerany...

Class II diterpene cyclases catalyze bicyclization of geranylgeranyl diphosphate. While this reaction typically is terminated via methyl deprotonation to yield copalyl diphosphate, in rare cases hydroxylated bicycles are produced instead. Abietadiene synthase is a bifunctional diterpene cyclase that usually produces a copalyl diphosphate intermediate. Here it is shown that substitution of aspar...

Polyprenyl synthase gene family contained many genes which played key roles in terpenoids biosynthesis. In A. thaliana, 17 polyprenyl synthase genes were already identified which could be divided into 4 major groups as Geranylgeranyl Diphosphate Synthase (GGPPS), Farnesyl Diphosphate Synthase (FPS), Solanesyl Diphosphate Synthase (SPS) and Geranyl Diphosphate Synthase (GPS). In this article, bi...

Comparison of the farnesyl diphosphate (FPP) synthase amino acid sequences from four species with amino acid sequences from the related enzymes hexaprenyl diphosphate synthase and geranylgeranyl diphosphate synthase show the presence of two aspartate rich highly conserved domains. The aspartate motif ((I, L, or V)XDDXXD) of the second of those domains has homology with at least 9 prenyl transfe...

Functional gene clusters, containing two or more genes encoding different enzymes for the same pathway, are sometimes observed in plant genomes, most often when the genes specify the synthesis of specialized defensive metabolites. Here, we show that a cluster of genes in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum; Solanaceae) contains genes for terpene synthases (TPSs) that specify the synthesis of monoterpe...