Effect of metabolites on G6PDH activity

The Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) is the self-governing organisation for science and research in Germany. It serves all branches of science and the humanities. In organisational terms, the DFG is an association under private law. Its membership consists of German research universities, non-university research institutions, scientific associations and the Academies of Science and the Humanities.

Cyanobacteria are the only prokaryotes performing oxygenic photosynthesis. Theyhad and have tremendous influence on the biogeochemical cycles on Earth. Recently,cyanobacteria are increasingly investigated as cell factories for a sustainableeconomy. Despite their global, environmental and rising economic importance, ourknowledge on the regulation of their primary metabolism is fragmented.Cyanobacteria switch between photoautotrophic and heterotrophic modes ofmetabolism during day/night cycles or ...

Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PDH), the enzyme that catalyzes the first step of the oxidative pentose phosphate (OPP) pathway, plays a key role in this process. G6PDH is produced at the onset of nitrogen starvation but remains inactive in dormant cells, only to be rapidly reactivated when nitrogen is restored. In this study, we investigated the mechanisms underlying this enzymatic regulation and found that G6PDH inactivation is primarily due to the accumulation of inhibitory metabolites. ...