Publications by authors named "J A Gerlt"

The Enzyme Function Initiative (EFI) provides a web resource with "genomic enzymology" web tools to leverage the protein (UniProt) and genome (European Nucleotide Archive; ENA; https://www.ebi.ac.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Pyridoxal 5’-phosphate or PLP is a cofactor derived from B vitamers and essential for growth in all known organisms. PLP synthesis and salvage pathways are well characterized in a few model species even though key components, such as the vitamin B transporters, are still to be identified in many organisms including the model bacteria or . Using a comparative genomic approach, PLP synthesis and salvage pathways were predicted in 5840 bacterial and archaeal species with complete genomes.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The radical SAM superfamily (RSS), arguably the most functionally diverse enzyme superfamily, is also one of the largest with ~700K members currently in the UniProt database. The vast majority of the members have uncharacterized enzymatic activities and metabolic functions. In this Perspective, we describe RadicalSAM.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Over the last 25 years, biology has entered the genomic era and is becoming a science of 'big data'. Most interpretations of genomic analyses rely on accurate functional annotations of the proteins encoded by more than 500 000 genomes sequenced to date. By different estimates, only half the predicted sequenced proteins carry an accurate functional annotation, and this percentage varies drastically between different organismal lineages.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Queuosine is a structurally unique and functionally important tRNA modification, widely distributed in eukaryotes and bacteria. The final step of queuosine biosynthesis is the reduction/deoxygenation of epoxyqueuosine to form the cyclopentene motif of the nucleobase. The chemistry is performed by the structurally and functionally characterized cobalamin-dependent QueG.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF