Biosynthetic arginine decarboxylase in phytopathogenic fungi.
Abstract
It has been reported that while bacteria and higher plants possess two different pathways for the biosynthesis of putrescine, via ornithine decarboxylase (ODC) and arginine decarboxylase (ADC); the fungi, like animals, only use the former pathway. We found that contrary to the earlier reports, two of the phytopathogenic fungi ( and ) contain significant levels of ADC activity with very little ODC. The ADC in these fungi has high pH optimum (8.4) and low Km (0.237 mM for . , 0.103 mM for . ), and is strongly inhibited by α-difluoromethylarginine (DFMA), putrescine and spermidine, further showing that this enzyme is probably involved in the biosynthesis of polyamines and not in the catabolism of arginine as in . The growth of these fungi is strongly inhibited by DFMA while α-difluoromethylornithine (DFMO) has little effect.
Department
Biological Sciences
Publication Date
2-22-1989
Journal Title
Life sciences
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
Document Type
Article
Recommended Citation
Akhtar J. Khan, Subhash C. Minocha, Biosynthetic arginine decarboxylase in phytopathogenic fungi, Life Sciences, Volume 44, Issue 17, 1989, Pages 1215-1222, ISSN 0024-3205, https://doi.org/10.1016/0024-3205(89)90317-2.
Rights
Copyright © 1989 Published by Elsevier Inc.