Examination Of Methyl Transferase Expression In Bacterial Metk Transformant

Abstract

S-adenosyl methionine (SAM) is the essential metabolite involved in various methylation reactions as methyl donor. SAM is synthesized through a long biosynthetic pathway in which the last enzyme SAM synthetase of the chain converts L-methionine and ATP into SAM. Enhancing the level of SAM synthetase expression was believed to increase the cellular SAM amount and this causes several effects not only on the primary but also the secondary metabolisms (early fruiting, increased antibiotic production…). In the content of this report, the gene for SAM synthetase, metK was isolated and inserted into E.coli bacteria. The transformants were then tested using realtime PCR. We observed that the overexpression of SAM synthetase by inserted metK changed the expression level of different methyltransferases. The higher expression level of DNA adenine methyltransferase and protein glutamine N5 methyltransferase were achieved while it showed unclear effect on 3-methyl-2-oxobutanoate hydroxyl methyltransferase . Keyword: SAM synthetase/ MetK gene Methyltransferase