The UBR-1 ubiquitin ligase regulates glutamate metabolism to generate coordinated motor pattern in Caenorhabditis elegans
Fig 5
GOT-1 synthesizes glutamate from aspartate.
A) GOT transaminases maintain the equilibrium between glutamate and aspartate by reversible transfer of the amino group (NH2) (left panel). Results from our amino acid profiling indicates that in C. elegans, GOT-1 preferentially catalyzes synthesis of glutamate from aspartate (right panel). B) Free amino acid levels measured from whole animal lysates by HPLC. got-1 mutants (Bottom panel) exhibit reduced glutamate and alanine (blue arrows), and increased aspartate, asparagine and cysteine (red arrows) compared to wildtype animals (Top panel). In order to present data of a wide range, the Y-axis utilizes three different scales at different concentration values. Consistent with glutamate being the sole precursor of GABA synthesis, GABA level was also increased in ubr-1 mutants (blue arrow). *P<0.05, **P<0.01 by the Student T test, N: 5 replica. Data are represented as mean ± SEM.