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Publication Abstract from PubMed

We describe a computationally designed enzyme, formolase (FLS), which catalyzes the carboligation of three one-carbon formaldehyde molecules into one three-carbon dihydroxyacetone molecule. The existence of FLS enables the design of a new carbon fixation pathway, the formolase pathway, consisting of a small number of thermodynamically favorable chemical transformations that convert formate into a three-carbon sugar in central metabolism. The formolase pathway is predicted to use carbon more efficiently and with less backward flux than any naturally occurring one-carbon assimilation pathway. When supplemented with enzymes carrying out the other steps in the pathway, FLS converts formate into dihydroxyacetone phosphate and other central metabolites in vitro. These results demonstrate how modern protein engineering and design tools can facilitate the construction of a completely new biosynthetic pathway.

Computational protein design enables a novel one-carbon assimilation pathway.,Siegel JB, Smith AL, Poust S, Wargacki AJ, Bar-Even A, Louw C, Shen BW, Eiben CB, Tran HM, Noor E, Gallaher JL, Bale J, Yoshikuni Y, Gelb MH, Keasling JD, Stoddard BL, Lidstrom ME, Baker D Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2015 Mar 24;112(12):3704-9. doi:, 10.1073/pnas.1500545112. Epub 2015 Mar 9. PMID:25775555^[1]

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