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. 2020 Apr 28;11:517. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2020.00517

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Copyright © 2020 Balzano, Sardo, Blasio, Chahine, Dell’Anno, Sansone and Brunet.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

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Structure and biosynthetic pathways of glutathione (GSH) and phytochelatin (PC). Three-letter abbreviations correspond to amino acid codes. (A) The biosynthetic pathway of GSH and PC consists of two and three reactions, respectively. First, a cysteine unit binds to the carboxylic group of the side chain of glutamic acid residue to form γ-glutamylcysteine, and this reaction is catalyzed by glutamate–cysteine ligase (GCL), then γ-glutamylcysteine binds to a glycine residue to form glutathione, and glutathione synthetase (GSHS) catalyses this reaction. PC-synthase (PCS) might then bind two or more GSH units to form phytochelatins. (B) Example of PC–metal complexes for divalent cations. M²⁺ denotes bivalent metal cations, whereas cysteine residues are indicated in red.