Branched chain amino acid transaminase 1 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the BCAT1 gene.[1] It is the first enzyme in the Branched-chain amino acid (BCAA) degradation pathway and facilitates the reversible transamination of BCAAs and glutamate. BCAT1 resides in the cytoplasm, while its isoform, BCAT2, is found in the mitochondria.
This gene encodes the cytosolic form of the enzyme branched-chain amino acid transaminase. This enzyme catalyzes the reversible transamination of branched-chain alpha-keto acids (BCKAs) to the branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs) Valine, Leucine and Isoleucine, which are essential for cell growth. In humans, its primary role is the deamination of BCAAs, as humans lack the enzymes for de novo synthesis of BCKAs. The respective cofactors are alpha-ketoglutarate and glutamate. The respective reactions are:
Two different clinical disorders have been attributed to a defect of branched-chain amino acid transamination: hypervalinemia and hyperleucine-isoleucinemia.[7] As there is also a gene encoding a mitochondrial form of this enzyme (BCAT2), mutations in either gene may contribute to these disorders.
↑Ben-Yosef T, Eden A, Benvenisty N (July 1998). "Characterization of murine BCAT genes: Bcat1, a c-Myc target, and its homolog, Bcat2". Mammalian Genome. 9 (7): 595–7. PMID9657861.
↑Wang XL, Li CJ, Xing Y, Yang YH, Jia JP (September 2015). "Hypervalinemia and hyperleucine-isoleucinemia caused by mutations in the branched-chain-amino-acid aminotransferase gene". Journal of Inherited Metabolic Disease. 38 (5): 855–61. doi:10.1007/s10545-015-9814-z. PMID25653144.
↑Thewes V, Simon R, Hlevnjak M, Schlotter M, Schroeter P, Schmidt K, et al. (July 2017). "The branched-chain amino acid transaminase 1 sustains growth of antiestrogen-resistant and ERα-negative breast cancer". Oncogene. 36 (29): 4124–4134. doi:10.1038/onc.2017.32. PMID28319069.
↑Raffel S, Falcone M, Kneisel N, Hansson J, Wang W, Lutz C, et al. (November 2017). "BCAT1 restricts αKG levels in AML stem cells leading to IDHmut-like DNA hypermethylation". Nature. 551 (7680): 384–388. doi:10.1038/nature24294. PMID29144447.
↑Xu Y, Yu W, Yang T, Zhang M, Liang C, Cai X, Shao Q (May 2018). "Overexpression of BCAT1 is a prognostic marker in gastric cancer". Human Pathology. 75: 41–46. doi:10.1016/j.humpath.2018.02.003. PMID29447920.