Homospermidine biosynthesis in the cyanobacterium Anabaena requires a deoxyhypusine synthase homologue and is essential for normal diazotrophic growth

What is it about?

Polyamines are primordial, small organic polycations present in almost all cells, but different pathways for polyamine biosynthesis have evolved in different organisms. We show that the heterocyst-forming cyanobacterium Anabaena synthesizes the polyamine sym-homospermidine through a novel pathway that involves arginine decarboxylase, agmatinase and a deoxyhypusine synthase-like enzyme. We also show that production of a polyamine (mainly homospermidine) is needed for heterocyst differentiation in Anabaena, which is a novel role for polyamines in biology.

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