Browsing by Author "Jewell, Jonathan Frederick"

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    The analysis of glycogen phosphate and glucose-1,6-bisphosphate metabolism in escherichia coli
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2015-03) Jewell, Jonathan Frederick; Lloyd, James Richard; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Agrisciences. Dept. of Genetics.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis examined two aspects of E. coli carbon metabolism, the incorporation of covalently bound phosphate into glycogen as well as the manufacture of glucose-1,6-bisphosphate (GBP). In vitro analysis using recombinant maltodextrin phosphorylase (MalP) incubated together with maltodextrin, glucose-1-phosphate (Glc-1-P) and GBP resulted in the incorporation of phosphate into manufactured polymer at levels of 15 nmol Glc-6-P/mg polymer. No phosphate could be detected in the same incubation lacking only GBP. Moreover, higher amounts of polymer were also present in incubations where GBP was present with Glc-1-P, compared with Glc-1-P alone. Attempts were made to purify glycogen phosphorylase (GlgP), but these were unsuccessful. To examine if MalP and/or GlgP carry out this reaction in vivo, strains lacking them were produced. However, analysis revealed no significant difference in the phosphate content of glycogen extracted from wild type, single and double mutants lacking glgP and malP. A protein responsible for the synthesis of a phosphoglucomutase (PGM) stimulatory compound was purified to apparent homogeneity. This was identified, through tryptic fingerprinting, as the acid glucose-1-phosphate phosphatase (AGP) protein. Using recombinant AGP protein it was demonstrated that it was able to produce GBP from Glc-1-P in a phosphotransferase reaction, where one phosphate from Glc-1-P phosphorylates the C6 position of another. However, agp mutant cells were unchanged in the amounts of GBP they accumulate and crude protein extracts from them were still capable of synthesizing GBP from Glc-1-P. A mutant strain lacking both agp and pgm could no longer produce a PGM stimulatory compound, indicating that PGM most likely also synthesises GBP.