Issue October 2009

category image Volume 27
No. 2 (p 111-244)
October 2009
ISSN 0739-110

tRNA-dependent Cysteine Biosynthetic Pathway Represents a Strategy to Increase Cysteine Contents by Preventing it from Thermal Degradation: Thermal Adaptation of Methanogenic Archaea Ancestor (p. 111-114)

Although cysteine (Cys) is beneficial to stabilize protein structures, it is not prevalent in thermophiles. For instance, the Cys contents in most thermophilic archaea are only around 0.7%. However, methanogenic archaea, no matter thermophilic or not, contain relatively abundant Cys, which remains elusive for a long time. Recently, Klipcan et al. correlated this intriguing property of methanogenic archaea with their unique tRNA-dependent Cys biosynthetic pathway. But, the deep reasons underlying the correlation are ambiguous. Considering the facts that free Cys is thermally labile and the tRNA-dependent Cys biosynthesis avoids the use of free Cys, we speculate that the unique Cys biosynthetic pathway represents a strategy to increase Cys contents by preventing it from thermal degradation, which may be relevant to the thermal adaptation of methanogenic archaeza ancestor.

Ge Qu1,2,a
Wei Wang1,a
Ling-Ling Chen2
Shao-Song Qian1
Hong-Yu Zhang2,*

1Shandong Provincial Research Center for Bioinformatic Engineering and Technique, Center for Advanced Study Shandong University of Technology Zibo 255049, P. R. China
2Institute of Bioinformatics and State Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic Improvement, College of Life Science and Technology, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan 430070, P. R. China
aContributed equally

zhy630@mail.hzau.edu.cn

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