• BMB Reports
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• v.35 no.5
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• pp.443-451
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• 2002

Malonate is a three-carbon dicarboxylic acid. It is well known as a competitive inhibitor of succinate dehydrogenase. It occurs naturally in biological systems, such as legumes and developing rat brains, which indicates that it may play an important role in symbiotic nitrogen metabolism and brain development. Recently, enzymes that are related to malonate metabolism were discovered and characterized. The genes that encode the enzymes were isolated, and the regulation of their expression was also studied. The mutant bacteria, in which the malonate-metabolizing gene was deleted, lost its primary function, symbiosis, between Rhizobium leguminosarium bv trifolii and clover. This suggests that malonate metabolism is essential in symbiotic nitrogen metabolism, at least in clover nodules. In addition to these, the genes matB and matC have been successfully used for generation of the industrial strain of Streptomyces for the production of antibiotics.

• BMB Reports
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• v.32 no.4
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• pp.414-418
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• 1999

A novel gene for malonyl-CoA decarboxylase was discovered in the mat operon, which encodes a set of genes involved in the malonate metabolism of Rhizobium trifolii (An and Kim, 1998). The subunit mass determined by SDS-PAGE was 53 kDa, which correspond to the deduced mass from the sequence data. The molecular mass of the native enzyme determined by field flow fractionation was 208 kDa, indicating that R. trifolii malonyl-CoA decarboxylase is homotetrameric. R. trifolii malonyl-CoA decarboxylase converted malonyl-CoA to acetyl-CoA with a specific activity of 100 unit/mg protein. Methylmalonyl-CoA was decarboxylated with a specific activity of 0.1 unit/mg protein. p-Chloromercuribenzoate inhibited this enzyme activity, suggesting that thiol group(s) is(are) essential for this enzyme catalysis. Database analysis showed that malonyl-CoA decarboxylase from R. trifolii shared 32.7% and 28.1% identity in amino acid sequence with those from goose and human, respectively, and it would be located in the cytoplasm. However, there is no sequence homology between this enzyme and that from Saccharopolyspora erythreus, suggesting that malonyl-CoA decarboxylases from human, goose, and R. trifolii are in the same class, whereas that from S. erythreus is in a different class or even a different enzyme, methylmalonyl-CoA decarboxylase. According to the homology analysis, Cys-214 among three cysteine residues in the enzyme was found in the homologous region, suggesting that the cysteine was located at or near the active site and plays a critical role in catalysis.