Abstract 1165 A Structural Analysis of Carboxyspermidine Decarboxylase

The human gut contains trillions of microbes that encode enzymes that catalyze reactions essential to human digestion and general health. Carboxyspermidine decarboxylase (CASDC) is a pyridoxal 5'-phosphate (PLP) dependent enzyme that decarboxylates carboxyspermidine to produce the polyamine spermidine. Spermidine plays a key role in eukaryotic translation, by modifying lysine to hypusine in elongation factor 5. An Alphafold2 structure of Clostridium leptum CASDC (ClCASDC) had a similar active site arrangement to Homo sapiens ornithine decarboxylase which is inhibited by the FDA-approved compound difluoromethylornithine (DFMO).