Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: EC:2.7.1.21 (thymidine kinase)
 7,561 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Dictyostelium discoideum strain HPS 401 contains a spontaneous mutation that lowers the amount of thymidine required for cell growth relative to that of the auxotrophic parental strain HPS 400. Growth studies in defined medium show that as little as 8 micrograms thymidine/ml supports maximal growth of HPS 401, whereas 50 micrograms/ml is required by HPS 400. In contrast, both strains require over 40 micrograms thymidylate/ml to achieve maximal growth. HPS 401 exhibits thymidineless death when grown without thymidine; relative viability decreases to less than 0.01% after 190 h incubation. Assays for enzymes related to thymidine metabolism reveal that none of the strains tested (HPS 401, HPS 400, and prototrophic HPS 83 cells) contain detectable thymidine phosphorylase activity and that the specific activity of thymidine kinase is the same in these three strains. Thin-layer chromatography of extracts from cells grown on radiolabeled thymidine shows that there is no detectable conversion of thymidine to thymine in any of these strains. These analyses show that HPS 401 has rapid intracellular accumulation of thymidine, while only slight uptake is observed with HPS 400 or wild-type strains. HPS 401 also shows greater uptake of uridine in comparison to HPS 400 and wild-type cells. Thymidylate uptake was the same for all three strains. Thus, the mutation giving rise to the HPS 401 phenotype selectively increases the uptake of thymidine into the cell, where it can be efficiently utilized for DNA synthesis by the "salvage" pathways of nucleotide metabolism.
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PMID:Enhanced thymidine uptake causes the lowered thymidine requirement of D. discoideum auxotroph HPS 401. 316 46

We have transformed Dictyostelium discoideum amoebae by using derivatives of a plasmid, pAG60, which was designed for transformation of mammalian cells. The plasmid carries the promoter region of the herpes simplex virus type 1 thymidine kinase gene linked to the bacterial gene kan, which codes for the enzyme aminoglycoside 3'-phosphotransferase. kan is derived from the Tn5 transposon. Expression of the phosphotransferase permits direct selection of transformed cells by their resistance to the antibiotic G-418. pAG60 is incapable of transforming D. discoideum but is made transformation proficient by cloning D. discoideum sequences into the tetracycline resistance gene. The majority of transformed cells grow and develop normally and differentiate to give G-418-resistant spores. These transformants are unstable and rapidly lose their G-418-resistance during growth in the absence of antibiotic selection. Southern blots show that these unstable G-418-resistant transformants carry the pBR322 and kan sequences of pAG60. The pAG60-D. discoideum recombinant plasmids used for transformation were constructed in a way that might make them mutagenic. We have isolated several developmental mutants after transformation of D. discoideum with libraries of pAG60-D. discoideum recombinant plasmids. These mutants are G-418 resistant and carry pAG60 in their nuclear DNA. We recovered a pAG60-D. discoideum recombinant plasmid from several developmental mutants. This plasmid transforms D. discoideum at an elevated frequency and integrates into the nuclear genome. We speculate that integration can result in insertional inactivation of genes that are essential for differentiation but not for growth. Mutagenic transformation occurred only if the transforming plasmid had homology with D. discoideum nuclear DNA. A mammalian cell transformation vector, pSV2-neo, carried no D. discoideum sequences and was able to transform. However, pSV2-neo transformation was not mutagenic. These results suggest that direct inactivation and recovery of genes that are essential for differentiation of D. discoideum will be possible.
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PMID:Efficient transformation of Dictyostelium discoideum amoebae. 631 83

Probing of a cDNA expression library from multicellular development of Dictyostelium discoideum using a recombinant radiolabelled calmodulin probe (35S-VU1-CaM) led to the isolation of a cDNA encoding a putative CaM-binding protein (CaMBP). The cDNA contained an open reading frame of 951 bp encoding a 227aa polypeptide (25.5 kDa). Sequence comparisons led to highly significant matches with cytosolic thymidine kinases (TK1; EC 2.7.1.21) from a diverse number of species including humans (7e-56; 59% Identities; 75% Positives) indicating that the encoded protein is D. discoideum TK1 (DdTK1; ThyB). DdTK1 has not been previously characterized in this organism. In keeping with its sequence similarity with DdTK1, antibodies against humanTK1 recognize DdTK1, which is expressed during growth but decreases in amount after starvation. A CaM-binding domain (CaMBD; 20GKTTELIRRIKRFNFANKKC30) was identified and wild type DdTK1 plus two constructs (DdTK deltaC36, DdTK deltaC75) possessing the domain were shown to bind CaM in vitro but only in the presence of calcium while a construct (DdTK deltaN72) lacking the region failed to bind to CaM. Thus, DdTK1 is a Ca2+-dependent CaMBP. Sequence alignments against TK1 from vertebrates to viruses show that CaM-binding region is highly conserved. The identified CaMBD overlaps the ATP-binding (P-loop) domain suggesting CaM might affect the activity of this kinase. Recombinant DdTK is enzymatically active and showed stimulation by CaM (113+/-0.5%) an in vitro enhancement that was prevented by co-addition of the CaM antagonists W7 (91.2+/-0.8%) and W13 (96.6+/-0.6%). The discovery that TK1 from D. discoideum, and possibly other species including humans and a large number of human viruses, is a Ca2+-dependent CaMBP opens up new avenues for research on this medically relevant protein.
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PMID:Isolation and characterization of Dictyostelium thymidine kinase 1 as a calmodulin-binding protein. 1588 42

The salvage of deoxyribonucleosides in the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum, which has an extremely A+T-rich genome, was investigated. All native deoxyribonucleosides were phosphorylated by D. discoideum cell extracts and we subcloned three deoxyribonucleoside kinase (dNK) encoding genes. D. discoideum thymidine kinase was similar to the human thymidine kinase 1 and was specific for thymidine with a K(m) of 5.1 microM. The other two cloned kinases were phylogenetically closer to bacterial deoxyribonucleoside kinases than to the eukaryotic enzymes. D. discoideum deoxyadenosine kinase (DddAK) had a K(m) for deoxyadenosine of 22.7 microM and a k(cat) of 3.7 s(-1) and could not efficiently phosphorylate any other native deoxyribonucleoside. D. discoideum deoxyguanosine kinase was also a purine-specific kinase and phosphorylated significantly only deoxyguanosine, with a K(m) of 1.4 microM and a k(cat) of 3 s(-1). The two purine-specific deoxyribonucleoside kinases could represent ancient enzymes present in the common ancestor of bacteria and eukaryotes but remaining only in a few eukaryote lineages. The narrow substrate specificity of the D. discoideum dNKs reflects the biased genome composition and we attempted to explain the strict preference of DddAK for deoxyadenosine by modeling the active center with different substrates. Apart from its native substrate, deoxyadenosine, DddAK efficiently phosphorylated fludarabine. Hence, DddAK could be used in the enzymatic production of fludarabine monophosphate, a drug used in the treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukemia.
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PMID:Dictyostelium discoideum salvages purine deoxyribonucleosides by highly specific bacterial-like deoxyribonucleoside kinases. 1744 96