Spence Macdonald

Spence

Ph.D. Candidate (Genome Science and Technology)

 

  • 2011-2014 M.Sc. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of British Columbia, Supervisor: Steve Withers.
  • 2005-2010 B.Sc. (Hons.) Biology, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario

 

Phone:  604-822-9300
Email:  spencem(at)chem.ubc.ca

 

RESEARCH INTEREST

My research focuses on developing functional assays that can be used to screen metagenomic libraries for glycoside phosphorylases (GPases).  These enzymes are used by the organism to degrade polysaccharides down into activated sugar-1-phosphates, which can feed directly into the glycolysis pathway.  We are interested in this class of enzymes because the energy associated with the activated degradation products results in equilibrium constants close to 1. As a consequence we can use an excess of inexpensive sugar-1-phosphates to drive the reaction in the reverse direction, to favour synthesis. Therefore, GPases represent an interesting biocatalyst that can be used in the synthesis of special carbohydrates, both in a laboratory and industrial setting.  Unfortunately, few GPases are currently known and the ones we do know have limited capabilities due to narrow acceptor specificity. We have turned to metagenomics as a source of discovery for new GPases, which will hopefully broaden our capabilities towards the synthesis of special carbohydrates.

PUBLICATIONS

Macdonald, S.S., Blaukopf, M. & Withers, S.G. N-Acetylglucosaminidases from CAZy Family GH3 Are Really Glycoside Phosphorylases, Thereby Explaining Their Use of Histidine as an Acid/Base Catalyst in Place of Glutamic Acid. The Journal of biological chemistry 290, 4887-4895 (2015).