Engineering a flexible loop in S-adenosyl-L-methionine synthetase enables production of SAM nucleobase analogues with selective biochemical and cellular activity
S-adenosyl-L-methionine (SAM), an essential cofactor in all forms of life, is synthesized by the enzyme methionine adenosyltransferase (MAT) from methionine and ATP. The adenine moiety in SAM appears to have no direct function in catalysis, and some MAT homologs can utilize natural nucleotide triphosphates in vitro, pr...