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V. De novo Synthesis of Fatty Acids

Overview Overview: Tissue locations Overview: Reaction sum     Enzymes and Isolated Reactions Enzymes and Isolated Reactions: Acetyl CoA carboxylase Enzymes and Isolated Reactions: Activities of FA Synthase Enzymes and Isolated Reactions: Characteristics of Fatty Acyl Synthase     Acetyl Groups and Reducing Equivalents     Previous Page Next Page

Enzymes and Isolated Reactions: Characteristics of Fatty Acyl Synthase

Fatty acyl synthase has three important characteristics :

  1. It is essential, but not rate-limiting, for fatty acid synthesis. It is not subject to short term control.

  2. ACP and the catalytic activities are on a single contiguous protein (257 kDa).

  3. In animals the synthase is active only as a dimer. The malonyl/acetyl transferase, condensing enzyme and dehydratase activities from the first subunit and all the other activities from the second subunit form one functional unit. A second functional unit forms from the remainder of the two subunits.

In contrast, bacterial activities are all on separate enzymes. Interestingly, the enoyl reductase of Mycobacterium tuberculosis is the target of isoniazid and other major antituberculosis drugs.

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