Evolution of proline biosynthesis: enzymology, bioinformatics, genetics, and transcriptional regulation

Proline is not only an essential component of proteins but it also has important roles in adaptation to osmotic and dehydration stresses, redox control, and apoptosis. Here, we review pathways of proline biosynthesis in the three domains of life. Pathway reconstruction from genome data for hundreds of eubacterial and dozens of archaeal and eukaryotic organisms revealed evolutionary conservation and variations of this pathway across different taxa. In the most prevalent pathway of proline synthesis, glutamate is phosphorylated to -glutamyl phosphate by -glutamyl kinase, reduced to -glutamyl semialdehyde by -glutamyl phosphate reductase, cyclized spontaneously to (1)-pyrroline-5-carboxylate and reduced to proline by (1)-pyrroline-5-carboxylate reductase. In higher plants and animals the first two steps are catalysed by a bi-functional (1)-pyrroline-5-carboxylate synthase. Alternative pathways of proline formation use the initial steps of the arginine biosynthetic pathway to ornithine, which can be converted to (1)-pyrroline-5-carboxylate by ornithine aminotransferase and then reduced to proline or converted directly to proline by ornithine cyclodeaminase. In some organisms, the latter pathways contribute to or could be fully responsible for the synthesis of proline. The conservation of proline biosynthetic enzymes and significance of specific residues for catalytic activity and allosteric regulation are analysed on the basis of protein structural data, multiple sequence alignments, and mutant studies, providing novel insights into proline biosynthesis in organisms. We also discuss the transcriptional control of the proline biosynthetic genes in bacteria and plants.