Dietmar Laudert

One Hundred Years of Vitamins—A Success Story of the Natural Sciences

The discovery of vitamins as essential factors in the diet was a scientific breakthrough that changed the world. Diseases such as scurvy, rickets, beriberi, and pellagra were recognized to be curable with an adequate diet. These diseases had been prevalent for thousands of years and had a dramatic impact on societies as well as on economic development. This Review highlights the key achievements in the development of industrial processes for the manufacture of eight of the 13 vitamins.

The Bacillus subtilis yqjI Gene Encodes the NADP + -Dependent 6-P-Gluconate Dehydrogenase in the Pentose Phosphate Pathway

Despite the importance of the oxidative pentose phosphate (PP) pathway as a major source of reducing power and metabolic intermediates for biosynthetic processes, almost no direct genetic or biochemical evidence is available for Bacillus subtilis. Using a combination of knockout mutations in known and putative genes of the oxidative PP pathway and 13C-labeling experiments, we demonstrated that yqjI encodes the NADP+-dependent 6-P-gluconate dehydrogenase, as was hypothesized previously from sequence similarities. Moreover, YqjI was the predominant isoenzyme during glucose and gluconate catabolism, and its role in the oxidative PP pathway could not be played by either of two homologues, GntZ and YqeC. This conclusion is in contrast to the generally held view that GntZ is the relevant isoform; hence, we propose a new designation for yqjI, gndA, the monocistronic gene encoding the principal 6-P-gluconate dehydrogenase. Although we demonstrated the NAD+-dependent 6-P-gluconate dehydrogenase activity of GntZ, gntZ mutants exhibited no detectable phenotype on glucose, and GntZ did not contribute to PP pathway fluxes during growth on glucose. Since gntZ mutants grew normally on gluconate, the functional role of GntZ remains obscure, as does the role of the third homologue, YqeC. Knockout of the glucose-6-P dehydrogenase-encoding zwf gene was primarily compensated for by increased glycolytic fluxes, but about 5% of the catabolic flux was rerouted through the gluconate bypass with glucose dehydrogenase as the key enzyme.

Catalysis of an Essential Step in Vitamin B2 Biosynthesis by a Consortium of Broad Spectrum Hydrolases.

An enzyme catalysing the essential dephosphorylation of the riboflavin precursor, 5‐amino‐6‐ribitylamino‐2,4(1H,3H)‐pyrimidinedione 5′‐phosphate (6), was purified about 800‐fold from a riboflavin‐producing Bacillus subtilis strain, and was assigned as the translation product of the ycsE gene by mass spectrometry. YcsE is a member of the large haloacid dehalogenase (HAD) superfamily. The recombinant protein was expressed in Escherichia coli. It catalyses the hydrolysis of 6 (vmax, 12 μmol mg−1 min−1; KM, 54 μm) and of FMN (vmax, 25 μmol mg−1 min−1; KM, 135 μm). A ycsE deletion mutant of B. subtilis was not riboflavin dependent. Two additional proteins (YwtE, YitU) that catalyse the hydrolysis of 6 at appreciable rates were identified by screening 13 putative HAD superfamily members from B. subtilis. The evolutionary processes that have resulted in the handling of an essential step in the biosynthesis of an essential cofactor by a consortium of promiscuous enzymes require further analysis.