Figure 1.

Sequence alignment of acyl-ACP desaturases. Putative desaturases from M. tuberculosis H37Rv are aligned with the stearoyl-ACP Δ⁹ desaturases from castor (Ricinus communis) and Arabidopsis thaliana. The alignment was produced using CLUSTAL W (Thompson et al. 1994) as implemented in LaserGene (version 5.52, DNASTAR). Conserved residues are identified by boxes, residues lining the proposed substrate binding tunnel of Δ9D are identified by•, diiron cluster ligands are identified by gray shading, residues providing hydrogen bonds to the Nɛ2 positions of the His ligands are identified by ♦, and Trp residues implicated in electron transfer are identified by the arrow.