Journal
CHEMISTRY & BIOLOGY
Volume 21, Issue 1, Pages 125-135Publisher
CELL PRESS
DOI: 10.1016/j.chembiol.2013.11.006
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Funding
- US DOE [DE-AC02-06CH11357]
- Michigan Economic Development Corporation
- Michigan Technology Tr-Corridor [085P1000817]
- National Institutes of Health [S10 RR028833, GM P01 077596]
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Phosphonates (C-PO32-) have applications as antibiotics, herbicides, and detergents. In some environments, these molecules represent the predominant source of phosphorus, and several microbes have evolved dedicated enzymatic machineries for phosphonate degradation. For example, most common naturally occurring phosphonates can be catabolized to either phosphonoacetaldehyde or phosphonoacetate, which can then be hydrolyzed to generate inorganic phosphate and acetaldehyde or acetate, respectively. The phosphonoacetaldehyde oxidase gene (phnY) links these two hydrolytic processes and provides a previously unknown catabolic mechanism for phosphonoacetate production in the microbial metabolome. Here, we present biochemical characterization of PhnY and high-resolution crystal structures of the apo state, as well as complexes with substrate, cofactor, and product. Kinetic analysis of active site mutants demonstrates how a highly conserved aldehyde dehydrogenase active site has been modified in nature to generate activity with a phosphonate substrate.
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