Download MendeleyDiscovery of the selenium-containing antioxidant ovoselenol derived from convergent evolution.
Kayrouz, C.M., Ireland, K.A., Ying, V.Y., Davis, K.M., Seyedsayamdost, M.R.(2024) Nat Chem 16: 1868-1875
- PubMed: 39143299 Search on PubMedSearch on PubMed Central
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41557-024-01600-2
- Primary Citation Related Structures:
8U41, 8U42, 8UX5 - PubMed Abstract:
Selenium is an essential micronutrient, but its presence in biology has been limited to protein and nucleic acid biopolymers. The recent identification of a biosynthetic pathway for selenium-containing small molecules suggests that there is a larger family of selenometabolites that remains to be discovered. Here we identify a recently evolved branch of abundant and uncharacterized metalloenzymes that we predict are involved in selenometabolite biosynthesis using a bioinformatic search strategy that relies on the mapping of composite active site motifs. Biochemical studies confirm this prediction and show that these enzymes form an unusual C-Se bond onto histidine, thus giving rise to a distinct selenometabolite and potent antioxidant that we have termed ovoselenol. Aside from providing insights into the evolution of this enzyme class and the structural basis of C-Se bond formation, our work offers a blueprint for charting the microbial selenometabolome in the future.
- Department of Chemistry, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA.
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