Lipoic Acid Synthesis and Attachment in Mitochondria

描述（由申请人提供）： 硫辛酸在哺乳动物、植物和细菌的有氧能量代谢中起着至关重要的作用。尽管其代谢的重要性，负责合成和共价连接的酶这种酶辅因子仍然知之甚少。我们对这些过程的了解的一些最新进展发生在细菌系统中。 考虑到这些数据和线粒体来源于内共生细菌的事实，似乎细菌途径在哺乳动物线粒体中是保守的，细胞室中存在硫辛酸修饰的蛋白质。这项提议是检查哺乳动物线粒体的硫辛酸代谢，并测试所涉及的蛋白质是否像细菌中的蛋白质那样发挥功能。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Lipoic acid plays a vital role in aerobic energy metabolism in mammals, plants, and bacteria. Despite its metabolic importance the enzymes responsible for the synthesis and covalent attachment of this enzyme cofactor remain poorly understood. A number of recent advances in our knowledge of these processes has occurred in bacterial systems. Given these data and the fact that mitochondria are derived from endosymbiotic bacteria, it seems likely that the bacterial pathways are conserved in mammalian mitochondria, the cellular compartment where the lipoic acid-modified proteins reside. This proposal is to examine mammalian mitochondrial lipoic acid metabolism and test if the proteins involved function as do those in bacteria.