An insight into the sequential, structural and phylogenetic properties of banana 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate synthase 1 and study of its interaction with pyridoxal-5′-phosphate and aminoethoxyvinylglycine

In banana, ethylene production for ripening is accompanied by a dramatic increase in 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate (ACC) content, transcript level of Musa acuminata ACC synthase 1 (M4-ACS1) and the enzymatic activity of ACC synthase 1 at the onset of the climacteric period. MA-ACS1 catalyses the conversion of S-adenosyl-L-methionine (SAM) to ACC, the key regulatory step in ethylene biosynthesis. Multiple sequence alignments of 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate synthase (ACS) amino acid sequences based on database searches have indicated that MA-ACS1 is a highly conserved protein across the plant kingdom. This report describes an in silico analysis to provide the first important insightful information about the sequential, structural and phylogenetic characteristics of MA-ACS1. The three-dimensional structure of MA-ACS1, constructed based on homology modelling, in combination with the available data enabled a comparative mechanistic analysis of MA-ACS1 to explain the catalytic roles of the conserved and non-conserved active site residues. We have further demonstrated that, as in apple and tomato, banana-ACS1 (MA-ACS1) forms a homodimer and a complex with cofactor pyridoxal-5'-phosphate (PLP) and inhibitor aminoethoxyvinylglycine (AVG). We have also predicted that the residues from the PLP-binding pocket, essential for ligand binding, are mostly conserved across the MA-ACS1 structure and the competitive inhibitor AVG binds at a location adjacent to PLP.