Similar to mitochondrial alternative oxidase. im mutants have a variegated phenotype and fail to differentiate chloroplasts in the majority of their cells under high light intensity continuous illumination. The white tissues of immutans accumulate phytoene, a non-colored C40 carotenoid intermediate. This suggests that immutans controls, either directly or indirectly, the activity of phytoene desaturase (PDS), the enzyme that converts phytoene to zeta-carotene in higher plants. However, im is not the structural gene for PDS. It is located in the lumenar face of the thylakoid membrane. IM is expressed ubiquitously in plant tissues.
Computational Description
IMMUTANS (IM); CONTAINS InterPro DOMAIN/s: Alternative oxidase (InterPro:IPR002680); BEST Arabidopsis thaliana protein match is: alternative oxidase 2 (TAIR:AT5G64210.1); Has 30201 Blast hits to 17322 proteins in 780 species: Archae - 12; Bacteria - 1396; Metazoa - 17338; Fungi - 3422; Plants - 5037; Viruses - 0; Other Eukaryotes - 2996 (source: NCBI BLink).
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