Team:British Columbia/Model3

Monoterpene Synthase Structural Modeling

Objective: To identify mutations that may enhance the efficiency of terpene synthesis, we constructed three-dimensional models of the terpene synthase proteins.

Model Creators: Joe Ho, Samuel Wu

Model Advisors: Shing Hei Zhan, Alina Chan

Three-dimensional structure of the 3 terpene synthases

File:UBCiGEM superimposed synthases.jpeg

Superimposition of the 3D structures of alpha-pinene synthase (blue), beta-pinene synthase (red), and limonene synthase (green). We used MODELLER (1) to automate homology-based 3D structure prediction. We identified the experimentally determined 3D structure of a taxadiene synthase from Pacific Yew (PDB ID: 3P5R) as an appropriate template.

Reactive site of the three synthases