Structural and Functional Characterization of an Amino acid Transporter in Amaranthus hypochondriacus using Bioinformatics Tools

Abstract

Plants produce amino acids by utilizing metabolic pathways, which are essential for metabolism, temporary storage. Despite the existence of various transporter families, there is limited structural information available on the transporters. In the present study, bioinformatics based analysis was performed to decipher the role of amino acid transporter viz. amino acid permease which was observed to be associated with high protein content in grain of Amaranthus hypochondriacus through a genome wide association study (GWAS).The primary, secondary, and tertiary structure of the amino acid permease (an amino acid transporter) was modeled and validated using bioinformatics tools like ExPasy ProtParam, SOPMA, PSIPRED, and SWISS-MODEL. Results were further validated using MolProbity and PROCHECK programs. For phylogenetic tree construction, MEGA11 was used, and the STRING database was utilized to identify its interaction with other proteins. This study is first report of amino acid transporter of A. hypochondriacus which enhances our understanding about its structure and function which can be utilized in medical sector for humans benefit.