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Aconitase Research Paper

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Aconitase is one of the enzymes vital for the human. This enzyme is classified under the group of lyases. To be more specific, it functions as the hydro-lyases, breaking down the bond linking the carbon and oxygen through the dehydration. (NCBI, 1963) It also can perform the hydration under certain circumstances. Thus, aconitase is also known as citrate hydro-lyase and aconitate hydratase. (Kremer, 2013) The main metabolic pathway aconitase participates will be the aerobic respiration, especially the citric acid cycle of it. The cycle is also known as the Krebs cycle. Aconitase can catalyze the citrate to isocitrate in stage two of the cycle. (Voet, Voet, & Pratt, 2008) The mechanism involved in this process is actually a dehydration-rehydration …show more content…

There are several ferrous ions combined together with the several sulfide ions, forming the iron-sulfur clusters. When the aconitase is inactive, the cluster will have 3 iron atoms and 4 sulfur atoms with amino acid, cysteine, bound to these three iron atoms. When there is an iron atom added to this cluster, then the aconitase will be activated. (Flint & Allen, 1996) Thus, during the metabolism mentioned before, the iron atom last added will increase the coordination number to six instead of four. (Kremer, 2013) This iron atom will remove the hydrogen and hydroxyl group from the citrate or isocitrate, construct the intermediate, cis-aconitate, in either reaction. In spite of adding an iron atom to the inactivate aconitase, the maximum catalytic activity cannot be achieved no matter what. Therefore, in order to enhance the activity of aconitase to its utmost, a reducing protein made up of cysteine must be available while adding the fourth iron atom. So, the cysteine having the reducing characteristic not only can link the clusters to aconitase together but also double the rate of catalysis, with the aid of the additional iron atom. (Dickman & Cloutier, …show more content…

Both types of the aconitase can catalyze the interconversion of citrate and isocitrate. However, for the cytosolic aconitase, it can accelerate the reaction in the cytoplasm as an alternative, unlike the mitochondrial aconitase which proceeds the reaction inside of the mitochondrion. In addition to that, the cytosolic aconitase has the specific feature of balancing the number of acetyl-CoA and NADPH synthesized during the citric acid cycle. As the result of this, the other metabolisms can use these two compounds to generate other essential compounds, such as amino acids and fatty acids. Even though, the cytosolic aconitase can only be active in catalysis when the level of the iron atoms in the cytosol is high under normal circumstances. Otherwise, the cluster with four iron atoms and four sulfur atoms will be detached from the cytosolic aconitase, losing the role of being an enzyme. (McDowall,

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