InterPro domain: IPR004607

Phosphoribosylglycinamide formyltransferase, also known as GAR transformylase or GART, is an essential enzyme that catalyzes the third step in de novo purine biosynthesis [ 1 ]. This enzyme uses formyl tetrahydrofolate as a formyl group donor to produce 5'-phosphoribosyl-N-formylglycinamide. In prokaryotes, GART is a single domain protein [ 2 ] but in most eukaryotes GART (purN) resides in the C-terminal portion of a large multifunctional protein which also contains GAR synthetase (purD) and aminoimidazole ribonucleotide (AIR) synthetase (purM) activities [ 3 ].

1. De novo purine nucleotide biosynthesis: cloning of human and avian cDNAs encoding the trifunctional glycinamide ribonucleotide synthetase-aminoimidazole ribonucleotide synthetase-glycinamide ribonucleotide transformylase by functional complementation in E. coli. Nucleic Acids Res. 18, 6665-72
2. Glycinamide ribonucleotide transformylase undergoes pH-dependent dimerization. J. Mol. Biol. 262, 746-55
3. Crystal structures of human GAR Tfase at low and high pH and with substrate beta-GAR. Biochemistry 41, 14206-15