Enigmas of biosyntheses of unusual polyamines in an extreme thermophile, Thermus thermophilus

Thermus thermophilus, an extreme thermophile belonging to Domain Bacteria, produces unusual polyamines in addition to standard polyamines. To understand mechanisms of changes of polyamine compositions of the thermophile upon change of growth conditions such as environmental temperature, metabolic pathways of polyamine biosyntheses of T thermophilus have been studied and a new polyamine metabolic pathway was proposed. However, many enigmas remain to be solved in future studies. In this paper, biosyntheses of two non-standard polyamines, thermospermine and sym-homospermidine which are also produced and play important roles in plant cells, of the extreme thermophile are discussed in relation to the biosynthetic reactions in plants. (C) 2010 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved,