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Publication Abstract from PubMed

The genomes of various Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains encode proteins that do not appear to play a role in the growth or survival of the bacterium in its mammalian host, including some implicated in plant cell wall breakdown. Here we show that M. tuberculosis H37Rv does indeed possess a functional cellulase. The x-ray crystal structure of this enzyme, in ligand complex forms, from 1.9 to 1.1A resolution, reveals a highly conserved substrate-binding cleft, which affords similar, and unusual, distortion of the substrate at the catalytic center. The endoglucanase activity, together with the existence of a putative membrane-associated crystalline polysaccharide-binding protein, may reflect the ancestral soil origin of the Mycobacterium or hint at a previously unconsidered environmental niche.

Mycobacterium tuberculosis strains possess functional cellulases.,Varrot A, Leydier S, Pell G, Macdonald JM, Stick RV, Henrissat B, Gilbert HJ, Davies GJ J Biol Chem. 2005 May 27;280(21):20181-4. Epub 2005 Apr 11. PMID:15824123^[1]

From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.