CiteULike is a free online bibliography manager. Register and you can start organising your references online.

Why metabolic enzymes are essential or nonessential for growth of Escherichia coli K12 on glucose. Export

Biochemistry, Vol. 46, No. 44. (6 November 2007), pp. 12501-12511.

Citation Format

[Posts]

View FullText article


schwartzjmc's tags for this article

bacteria isozyme

X Reviews [Write a review of this article]

X Find related articles from these CiteULike users

X Find related articles with these CiteULike tags

X Posting History

X Abstract

The genes encoding metabolic enzymes involved in glucose metabolism, the TCA cycle, and biosynthesis of amino acids, purines, pyrimidines, and cofactors would be expected to be essential for growth of Escherichia coli on glucose because the cells must synthesize all of the building blocks for cellular macromolecules. Surprisingly, 80 of 227 of these genes are not essential. Analysis of why these genes are not essential provides insights into the metabolic sophistication of E. coli and into the evolutionary pressures that have shaped its physiology. Alternative routes enabled by interconnecting pathways can allow a defective step to be bypassed. Isozymes, alternative enzymes, broad-specificity enzymes, and multifunctional enzymes can often substitute for a missing enzyme. We expect that the apparent redundancy in these metabolic pathways has arisen due to the need for E. coli to survive in a variety of habitats and therefore to have a metabolism that allows optimal exploitation of varying environmental resources and synthesis of small molecules when they cannot be obtained from the environment.


X BibTeX record

X RIS record


Privacy Statement | Terms & Conditions
CiteULike organises scholarly (or academic) papers or literature and provides bibliographic (which means it makes bibliographies) for universities and higher education establishments. It helps undergraduates and postgraduates. People studying for PhDs or in postdoctoral (postdoc) positions. The service is similar in scope to EndNote or RefWorks or any other reference manager like BibTeX, but it is a social bookmarking service for scientists and humanities researchers.