Amino Acid Biosynthesis

Glutamate and Aspartate

Glutamate and aspartate are synthesized from their widely distributed a-keto acid precursors by simple 1-step transamination reactions. The former catalyzed by glutamate dehydrogenase and the latter by aspartate aminotransferase, AST. Aspartate is also derived from asparagine through the action of asparaginase. The importance of glutamate as a common intracellular amino donor for transamination reactions and of aspartate as a precursor of ornithine for the urea cycle is described in the Nitrogen Metabolism page.
 

Alanine and the Glucose-Alanine Cycle

Role in protein synthesis,

Alanine is second only to glutamine in prominence as a circulating amino acid.. When alanine transfer from muscle to liver is coupled with glucose transport from liver back to muscle, the process is known as the glucose-alanine cycle. The key feature of the cycle is that in 1 molecule, alanine, peripheral tissue exports pyruvate and ammonia (which are potentially rate-limiting for metabolism) to the liver, where the carbon skeleton is recycled and most nitrogen eliminated.

There are 2 main pathways to production of muscle alanine: directly from protein degradation, and via the transamination of pyruvate by alanine transaminase, ALT (also referred to as serum glutamate-pyruvate transaminase, SGPT).

glutamate + pyruvate <-------> a-KG + alanine

Cysteine Biosynthesis

The sulfur for cysteine synthesis comes from the essential amino acid methionine. A condensation of ATP and methionine catalyzed by methionine adenosyltransferase yields S-adenosylmethionine

Tyrosine Biosynthesis

Tyrosine is produced in cells by hydroxylating the essential amino acid phenylalanine. This relationship is much like that between cysteine and methionine. Half of the phenylalanine required goes into the production of tyrosine; if the diet is rich in tyrosine itself, the requirements for phenylalanine are reduced by about 50%.

Phenylalanine hydroxylase is a mixed-function oxygenase: one atom of oxygen is incorporated into water and the other into the hydroxyl of tyrosine. The reductant is the tetrahydrofolate-related cofactor tetrahydrobiopterin, which is maintained in the reduced state by the NADH-dependent enzyme dihydropteridine reductase (DHPR).

Ornithine and Proline Biosynthesis

Glutamate is the precursor of both proline and ornithine, with glutamate semialdehyde being a branch point intermediate leading to one or the other of these 2 products. While ornithine is not one of the 20 amino acids used in protein synthesis, it plays a significant role as the acceptor of carbamoyl phosphate in the urea cycle

Serine Biosynthesis

The main pathway to serine starts with the glycolytic intermediate 3-phosphoglycerate. An NADH-linked dehydrogenase converts 3-phosphoglycerate into a keto acid, 3-phosphopyruvate, suitable for subsequent transamination. Aminotransferase activity with glutamate as a donor produces 3-phosphoserine, which is converted to serine by phosphoserine phosphatase.
 

Glycine Biosynthesis

The main pathway to glycine is a 1-step reaction catalyzed by serine hydroxymethyltransferase. This reaction involves the transfer of the hydroxymethyl group from serine to the cofactor tetrahydrofolate (THF), producing glycine and N⁵,N¹⁰-methylene-THF. Glycine produced from serine or from the diet can also be oxidized by glycine cleavage complex, GCC, to yield a second equivalent of N⁵,N¹⁰-methylene-tetrahydrofolate as well as ammonia and CO₂.

Glycine is involved in many anabolic reactions other than protein synthesis including the synthesis of purine nucleotides, heme, glutathione, creatine and serine.

Aspartate/Asparagine and Glutamate/Glutamine Biosynthesis

Glutamate is synthesized by the reductive amination of a-ketoglutarate catalyzed by glutamate dehydrogenase; it is thus a nitrogen-fixing reaction. In addition, glutamate arises by aminotransferase reactions, with the amino nitrogen being donated by a number of different amino acids. Thus, glutamate is a general collector of amino nitrogen.

Aspartate is formed in a transamintion reaction catalyzed by aspartate transaminase, AST. This reaction uses the aspartate a-keto acid analog, oxaloacetate, and glutamate as the amino donor. Aspartate can also be formed by deamination of asparagine catalyzed by asparaginase.

Asparagine synthetase and glutamine synthetase, catalyze the production of asparagine and glutamine from their respective a-amino acids. Glutamine is produced from glutamate by the direct incorporation of ammonia; and this can be considered another nitrogen fixing reaction. Asparagine, however, is formed by an amidotransferase reaction.

Aminotransferase reactions are readily reversible. The direction of any individual transamination depends principally on the concentration ratio of reactants and products. By contrast, transamidation reactions, which are dependent on ATP, are considered irreversible. As a consequence, the degradation of asparagine and glutamine take place by a hydrolytic pathway rather than by a reversal of the pathway by which they were formed. As indicated above, asparagine can be degraded to aspartate