ArticleThe Journal of biological chemistry2015
Substrate-bound structures of benzylsuccinate synthase reveal how toluene is activated in anaerobic hydrocarbon degradation.
Article in The Journal of biological chemistry, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 24 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
24 citing papers in PubMed, 48 citations in OpenAlex.
- The structural basis of malodorant skatole formation by the glycyl radical enzyme indoleacetate decarboxylase.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- The Origin of the Kinetic Isotope Effect and Mechanism of H/D Exchange in Radical C-C Bond Formation Catalyzed by Benzylsuccinate Synthase: Experiments and Microkinetic Modeling.The journal of physical chemistry. B · 2026Article
- Nature's Anaerobic Toolkit: Glycyl Radical Enzymes and Their Expanding Functional and Mechanistic Diversity.Biochemistry · 2026Review
- The Structural Basis of Malodorant Skatole Formation by the Glycyl Radical Enzyme Indoleacetate Decarboxylase.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Unravelling the Enantioselective Mechanism of Benzylsuccinate Synthase: Insights into Anaerobic Hydrocarbon Degradation through Multiscale Modeling and Microkinetics.Biochemistry · 2026Article
- 50 Years of Giese Reaction - a Personal View.Angewandte Chemie (International ed. in English) · 2026Review
- Article
- Anaerobic Limonene Metabolism in a Methanogenic Enrichment Involves a Glycine Radical Enzyme.Environmental microbiology · 2025Article
- Structural basis for anaerobic alkane activation by a multisubunit glycyl radical enzyme.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Activation of X-Succinate Synthases for Fumarate Hydroalkylation Using an In Vitro Activation Method.Bio-protocol · 2025Article
- Modeling the Initiation Phase of the Catalytic Cycle in the Glycyl-Radical Enzyme Benzylsuccinate Synthase.The journal of physical chemistry. B · 2024Article
- A Synthetic Pathway for the Production of Benzylsuccinate inMolecules (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Nitrate-driven anaerobic oxidation of ethane and butane by bacteria.The ISME journal · 2024Article
- Development of aniScience · 2023Article
- Molecular basis of C-S bond cleavage in the glycyl radical enzyme isethionate sulfite-lyase.Cell chemical biology · 2021Article
- Unraveling the Metabolic Potential of Asgardarchaeota in a Sediment from the Mediterranean Hydrocarbon-Contaminated Water Basin Mar Piccolo (Taranto, Italy).Microorganisms · 2021Article
- Microbial Diversity Under the Influence of Natural Gas Storage in a Deep Aquifer.Frontiers in microbiology · 2021Article
- Discovery of CC bond-forming and bond-breaking radical enzymes: enabling transformations for metabolic engineering.Current opinion in biotechnology · 2020Review
- Benzylsuccinate Synthase is Post-Transcriptionally Regulated in the Toluene-Degrading DenitrifierMicroorganisms · 2020Article
- Discovery of enzymes for toluene synthesis from anoxic microbial communities.Nature chemical biology · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Various bacteria perform anaerobic degradation of small hydrocarbons as a source of energy and cellular carbon. To activate non-reactive hydrocarbons such as toluene, enzymes conjugate these molecules to fumarate in a radical-catalyzed, C-C bond-forming reaction. We have determined x-ray crystal structures of the glycyl radical enzyme that catalyzes the addition of toluene to fumarate, benzylsuccinate synthase (BSS), in two oligomeric states with fumarate alone or with both substrates. We find that fumarate is secured at the bottom of a long active site cavity with toluene bound directly above it. The two substrates adopt orientations that appear ideal for radical-mediated C-C bond formation; the methyl group of toluene is positioned between fumarate and a cysteine that forms a thiyl radical during catalysis, which is in turn adjacent to the glycine that serves as a radical storage residue. Toluene is held in place by fumarate on one face and tight packing by hydrophobic residues on the other face and sides. These hydrophobic residues appear to become ordered, thus encapsulating toluene, only in the presence of BSSβ, a small protein subunit that forms a tight complex with BSSα, the catalytic subunit. Enzymes related to BSS are able to metabolize a wide range of hydrocarbons through attachment to fumarate. Using our structures as a guide, we have constructed homology models of several of these "X-succinate synthases" and determined conservation patterns that will be useful in understanding the basis for catalysis and specificity in this family of enzymes.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.