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The Arabidopsis thaliana ortholog of a purported maize cholinesterase gene encodes a GDSL-lipase

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Abstract

Acetylcholinesterase is an enzyme that is intimately associated with regulation of synaptic transmission in the cholinergic nervous system and in neuromuscular junctions of animals. However the presence of cholinesterase activity has been described also in non-metazoan organisms such as slime molds, fungi and plants. More recently, a gene purportedly encoding for acetylcholinesterase was cloned from maize. We have cloned the Arabidopsis thaliana homolog of the Zea mays gene, At3g26430, and studied its biochemical properties. Our results indicate that the protein encoded by the gene exhibited lipase activity with preference to long chain substrates but did not hydrolyze choline esters. The At3g26430 protein belongs to the SGNH clan of serine hydrolases, and more specifically to the GDS(L) lipase family.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Jacob Jones, Alicja Skaleca-Ball and Barbara Beauchamp for their valued technical assistance. We also acknowledge Stephen Chelladurai’s input for the phylogenetic analysis and Dr. Nobuyuki Matoba and Dr. Hugh Mason for helpful discussions. This work was funded in part by the National Institutes of Health CounterACT Program through the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke under the U-54-NSO58183-01 award—a consortium grant awarded to USAMRICD and contracted to TSM under the research cooperative agreement number W81XWH-07-2-0023. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of the federal USA government. MM was supported in part by the Arizona State University’s School of Life Sciences Completion Research Assistantship scholarship.

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  1. School of Life Sciences and The Biodesign Institute, Arizona State University, P.O. Box 874501, Tempe, AZ, 85287-4501, USA

    Mrinalini Muralidharan, Kristina Buss, Katherine E. Larrimore, Nicholas A. Segerson, Latha Kannan & Tsafrir S. Mor

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  1. Mrinalini Muralidharan
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  2. Kristina Buss
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Correspondence to Tsafrir S. Mor.

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Muralidharan, M., Buss, K., Larrimore, K.E. et al. The Arabidopsis thaliana ortholog of a purported maize cholinesterase gene encodes a GDSL-lipase. Plant Mol Biol 81, 565–576 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11103-013-0021-8

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