Porphobilinogen synthase (or ALA dehydratase, or aminolevulinate dehydratase) synthesizes porphobilinogen through the asymmetric condensation of two molecules of aminolevulinic acid. All natural tetrapyrroles, including hemes, chlorophylls and vitamin B₁₂, share porphobilinogen as a common precursor.

It catalyzes the second step of the biosynthesis of porphyrin:

The porphobilinogen synthase catalyzed reaction is the first common step in the biosynthesis of all biological tetrapyrroles.

Porphobilinogen synthase is the prototype morpheein.

The structural basis for allosteric regulation of PBGS is modulation of a quaternary structure equilibrium between octamer and hexamer (via dimers), which is represented schematically as 6mer* ↔ 2mer* ↔ 2mer ↔ 8mer. The * represents a reorientation between two domains of each subunit that occurs in the dissociated state because it is sterically forbidden in the larger multimers.

PBGS is encoded by a single gene and each PBGS multimer is composed of multiple copies of the same protein. Each PBGS subunit consists of a ~300 residue αβ-barrel domain, which houses the enzyme's active site in its center, and a >25 residue N-terminal arm domain. Allosteric regulation of PBGS can be described in terms of the orientation of the αβ-barrel domain with respect to the N-terminal arm domain.

Each N-terminal arm has up to two interactions with other subunits in a PBGS multimer. One of these interactions helps to stabilize a "closed" conformation of the active site lid. The other interaction restricts solvent access from the other end of the αβ-barrel.

In the inactive multimeric state, the N-terminal arm domain is not involved in the lid-stabilizing interaction, and in the crystal structure of the inactive assembly, the active site lid is disordered.

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