Functional analysis of amino-acid-homopolymer synthetase

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epsilon-Poly-L-Lysine (ε-PL) produced by microorganisms is a highly safe antibacterial substance used widely as one of the world's few natural food preservatives. Although ε-PL has a simple polymer structure consisting of a normal chain of lysine, an amino acid, how it is synthesized inside microorganisms had not been clarified. In this study, we characterized the ε-PL synthetase and its gene. We also revealed that the ε-PL synthetase has a highly unusual domain architecture and reaction mechanism (Nature Chemical Biology, 4, 766-772, 2008).