🧬👨💻🧪 In a new pre-print from Colin Robinson, computational evidence for eukaryotic lanthanide-dependent proteins is presented, suggesting that lanthanide-dependence may be a widespread feature of life, rather than a specialized function in a few methylotrophic bacteria. doi.org/10.64898/202...
Evidence for lanthanide and PQQ dependent dehydrogenases in Eukarya
Lanthanides function as enzyme cofactors in bacteria, where they are widely distributed in pyrroloquinoline quinone-dependent 8-bladed beta-propeller dehydrogenases. No lanthanide-dependent enzymes, however, have been described outside prokaryotes. Here, we combined structural bioinformatics, phylogenetics, AlphaFold3 co-folding, coordination-sphere comparison, and quantum-mechanical cluster modeling to search for and rank putative lanthanide-coordinating 8-bladed beta-propeller enzymes in Eukarya. We identified candidate lanthanide-coordinating proteins in a diverse range of eukaryotes, predominantly plants and fungi, including species of clear industrial and agricultural relevance. A high-confidence subset matched validated bacterial Ln-binders based on both geometric similarity to canonical Ln-binding sites and on predicted Ln3+ versus Ca2+ selectivity. Our findings indicate that lanthanide biology likely extends beyond bacteria, with implications for plant, fungal, and broader eukaryotic metabolism, and warrant targeted biochemical investigation. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. Japan Atomic Energy Agency, https://ror.org/05nf86y53, 63853--12998--44--//--PG1JL
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