ArticleMicrobiology spectrum2022
Unveiling the Biosynthetic Pathway for Short Mycolic Acids in Nontuberculous Mycobacteria: Mycobacterium smegmatis MSMEG_4301 and Its Ortholog Mycobacterium abscessus MAB_1915 Are Essential for the Synthesis of α'-Mycolic Acids.
Article in Microbiology spectrum, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
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Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed, 6 citations in OpenAlex.
- The SigD regulon of Mycobacterium abscessus determines cell envelope composition and antibiotic susceptibility.PLoS genetics · 2026Article
- Biofilm Associated Persistence and Drug Tolerance in Mycobacteria Within Host Microenvironments.APMIS : acta pathologica, microbiologica, et immunologica Scandinavica · 2026Review
- Diversity of FAAL enzymes and prediction of their substrate specificity using FAALPred.Protein science : a publication of the Protein Society · 2026Article
- The Biosynthetic Pathway of Mycolic Acids: Dual-Function Targets for Tuberculosis Therapeutics and Green Steroid Drugs Biomanufacturing.Pharmaceutics · 2025Review
- Mycolic Acid-like Lipids Act as Substrates forACS omega · 2025Article
- Investigating the role ofMicrobiology spectrum · 2024Article
- High-throughput functional genomics: A (myco)bacterial perspective.Molecular microbiology · 2023Review
- New therapeutic strategies forExpert review of anti-infective therapyReview
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Mycolic acids, a hallmark of the genus Mycobacterium, are unique branched long-chain fatty acids produced by a complex biosynthetic pathway. Due to their essentiality and involvement in various aspects of mycobacterial pathogenesis, the synthesis of mycolic acids-and the identification of the enzymes involved-is a valuable target for drug development. Although most of the core pathway is comparable between species, subtle structure differences lead to different structures delineating the mycolic acid repertoire of tuberculous and some nontuberculous mycobacteria. We here report the characterization of an α'-mycolic acid-deficient Mycobacterium smegmatis mutant obtained by chemical mutagenesis. Whole-genome sequencing and bioinformatic analysis identified a premature stop codon in MSMEG_4301, encoding an acyl-CoA synthetase. Orthologs of MSMEG_4301 are present in all mycobacterial species containing α'-mycolic acids. Deletion of the Mycobacterium abscessus ortholog MAB_1915 abrogated synthesis of α'-mycolic acids; likewise, deletion of MSMEG_4301 in an otherwise wild-type M. smegmatis background also caused loss of these short mycolates.
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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.