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The unusual thermolability of glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase from the facultative thermophile Bacillus coagulans KU (Crabb et al., Biochemistry 16:4840-4847, 1977) has provided the first opportunity to study a homologous enzyme from the same genus that exhibits a marked difference in thermostability. In pursuit of the structural bases for the thermostability of proteins, the sequences of the amino terminus (residues 1 through 27) and the active-site cysteine cyanogen bromide peptide (residues 130 through 167) of this enzyme have been determined and compared with sequences of the enzyme from other sources. The importance of comparing phylogenetically related proteins is evident from the 87% identity found between these sequences in the enzyme from B. coagulans and Bacillus stearothermophilus, versus only 45% identity for all other known sequences. The marked sequence identity of the enzyme from the two Bacillus species drew attention to the variable region (residues 138 through 140a) which is exposed to the exterior of the quaternary structure of this enzyme. Based on the reported crystallographic structures of the enzyme from lobster muscle and B. stearothermophilus and space-filling models of the variable region, the segment Asp-Pro-Lys-Ala in B. stearothermophilus should be more thermostable than the analogous sequence, Asp-Ala-Ala-Asn, from B. coagulans. In addition, the space-filling models suggested that the spatial relationship of an amino acid side chain and its potential for close packing and interactions with neighboring side chains may be more important than the type of amino acid substituted.

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