Photosynthetic organisms require chlorophyll and bacteriochlorophyll to harness light energy and to transform water and carbon dioxide into carbohydrates and oxygen. The biosynthesis of these pigments is initiated by magnesium chelatase, an enzyme composed of BchI, BchD, and BchH proteins, which catalyzes the insertion of Mg(2+) into protoporphyrin IX (Proto) to produce Mg-protoporphyrin IX. BchI and BchD form an ATP-dependent AAA(+) complex that transiently interacts with the Proto-binding BchH subunit, at which point Mg(2+) is chelated.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe genomes of lungfish, together with those of some urodele amphibians, are the largest of all vertebrate genomes. It has been assumed that the bulk of the DNA making up these large genomes has been derived from repeat elements, like the noncoding DNA of those genomes that have been sequenced (e.g.
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