Glycine N-methyltransferase
Class of enzymes
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Glycine N-methyltransferase (EC 2.1.1.20) is an enzyme that catalyzes the chemical reaction
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| Glycine N-methyltransferase | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | |||||||||
| Identifiers | |||||||||
| EC no. | 2.1.1.20 | ||||||||
| CAS no. | 37228-72-1 | ||||||||
| Databases | |||||||||
| BRENDA | enzyme data | ||||||||
| ExPASy | NiceZyme view | ||||||||
| KEGG | enzyme entry | ||||||||
| MetaCyc | metabolic pathway | ||||||||
| Rhea | reactions | ||||||||
| PDB structures | RCSB PDB PDBe PDBsum | ||||||||
| Gene Ontology | AmiGO / QuickGO | ||||||||
| |||||||||
The enzyme catalyses a methylation reaction in which the amino acid glycine is converted to sarcosine. The methyl group comes from the cofactor, S-adenosyl methionine (SAM), which loses its methyl group and becomes S-adenosyl-L-homocysteine (SAH).[1][2][3]
Glycine N-methyltransferase belongs to the family of methyltransferase enzymes. The systematic name of this enzyme class is S-adenosyl-L-methionine:glycine N-methyltransferase. Other names in common use include glycine methyltransferase, S-adenosyl-L-methionine:glycine methyltransferase, and GNMT.[4] It regulates methyl group metabolism in the liver and pancreas by alterating the ratio between SAM and SAH. It is inhibited by 5-methyltetrahydrofolate pentaglutamate.[5][6] The product, sarcosine is converted back into glycine by the enzyme sarcosine dehydrogenase.
Structural studies
The crystal structure of three variants of the mammalian enzyme have been compared.[7]
