Pyridoxal kinase knockout of Dictyostelium complemented by the human homologue

The gene ( pykA ) encoding pyridoxal kinase which converts pyridoxal (vitamin B 6 ) to pyridoxal phosphate was isolated from Dictyostelium discoideum using insertional mutagenesis. Cells of a pykA gene knockout grew poorly in axenic medium with low yield but growth was restored by the addition of pyridoxal phosphate. Sequencing indicated a gene, with one intron, encoding a predicted protein of 301 amino acids that was 42% identical in amino acid sequence to human pyridoxal kinase. After expression of the wild‐type gene in Escherichia coli , the purified PykA protein product was shown to have pyridoxal kinase enzymatic activity with a K m of 8.7 μM for pyridoxal. Transformation of the Dictyostelium knockout mutant with the human pyridoxal kinase gene gave almost the same level of complementation as that seen using transformation with the wild‐type Dictyostelium gene. Phylogenetic analysis indicated that the Dictyostelium amino acid sequence was closer to human pyridoxal kinase than to pyridoxal kinases of lower eukaryotes.