Isolation and characterization of lycopene β cyclase from Capsicum frutescens

Lycopene β cyclase (LCY-B) catalyzes the conversion of linear lycopene to cyclic β carotene, a crucial component of the photosynthetic machinery and a source of vitamin A for humans and animals. The gene was amplified in fragments using primers designed from conserved sequences of available nucleotide sequences from NCBI and a sequence of 1494 bp was observed upon amplification of the complete gene. The deduced amino acid sequence had a significant overall similarity with sequences of other Capsicum plants. It was observed that C. frutescens occurred in the same cluster as C. annuum and C. baccatum, while LCYB from all the other plants of the Solanaceae family were placed in one cluster signifying the conserved nature of the protein. The tertiary structure obtained from the protein was validated using the Ramachandran plot and ERRANT scores were determined. The protein function analysis gives insight into important parameters of the protein such as the number of cysteine residues, glycosylation sites, phosphorylation sites, etc.