Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2000 Jul;1(1):16-7.
doi: 10.1093/embo-reports/kvd016.

A wheel invented three times. The molecular structures of the three carbonic anhydrases

Affiliations

A wheel invented three times. The molecular structures of the three carbonic anhydrases

A Liljas et al. EMBO Rep. 2000 Jul.
No abstract available

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

None
Fig. 1. The tertiary structures of the three forms of carbonic anhydrase. From top to bottom: α-CA monomer; algal β-CA dimer with internal repeat [the unique (monomer) fold is highlighted]; pea β-CA octamer; γ-CA trimer. For the oligomeric forms of the enzyme, one monomer is highlighted with the β-strands in yellow and the α-helices in blue. The other monomers are in light gray. The zinc ions are indicated by red spheres.
None
Fig. 2. Schematic representations of the active sites of the three forms of carbonic anhydrase with a bound bicarbonate ion (α-CA, Liljas et al., 1994; β-CA, Protein Data Bank entry 1QRL). The location of HCO3 in the active site of γ-CA is tentative and made in analogy to the situation in the other two forms. The proximity of an obligate hydrogen bond acceptor close to the free ligand position at the zinc ion (red sphere) seems in all cases to dictate the ion’s orientation. Thus, the catalytic mechanism is likely to be the same.

Similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Alber B.E. and Ferry, J.G. (1994) A carbonic anhydrase from the archaeon Methanosarcina thermophila. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA, 91, 6909–6913. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Hewett-Emmett D. and Tashian, R.E. (1996) Functional diversity, conservation, and convergence in the evolution of the α-, β-, and γ-carbonic anhydrase gene families. Mol. Phylogenet. Evol., 5, 50–77. - PubMed
    1. Keilin D. and Mann, T. (1940) Carbonic anhydrase, purification and nature of the enzyme. Biochem. J., 34, 1163–1176. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Kimber M.S. and Pai, E.F. (2000) The active site architecture of Pisum sativumβ-carbonic anhydrase is a mirror image of that of α-carbonic anhydrases. EMBO J., 19, 1407–1418. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Kisker C., Schindelin, H., Alber, B.E., Ferry, J.G. and Rees, D.C. (1996) A left-hand β-helix revealed by the crystal structure of a carbonic anhydrase from the archaeon Methanosarcina thermophila. EMBO J., 15, 2323–2330. - PMC - PubMed

Substances