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Ligase

Ligase is an enzyme which can create a new covalent bond between two molecules.

Structure of ligases

Like all enzymes, ligases are proteins which have an active site for the enzymatic reaction and a target molecule recognition site which gives the reaction its specificity.

Function of ligases

There are many types of ligase depending on the type of covalent bond which they catalyse (carbon-carbon bond, carbon-nitrogen bond, carbon-sulphur bond, etc.). They generally use the energy of a molecule of ATP (or GTP) to catalyse the reaction.

The ligases include aminoacyl tRNA-synthetases (which bind amino acids onto the corresponding tRNA and the DNA ligases (which bring two pieces ofDNA together).

Aminoacyl tRNA synthetase (in brown ) is a ligase which binds the amino acid covalently onto the corresponding tRNA (coloured). © Yikrazuul, Wikimedia, CC by-sa 3.0 Aminoacyl tRNA synthetase (in brown ) is a ligase which binds the amino acid covalently onto the corresponding tRNA (coloured). © Yikrazuul, Wikimedia, CC by-sa 3.0

Ligase - 1 Photo
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