Research Projects

Land plants have developed metabolic pathways that involve the production of reactive aldehydes and their detoxification to survive harsh environments. A chiral proofreader, DTD2, plays a critical role in detoxifying anaerobic stress-induced acetaldehyde modification of D-aminoacyl-tRNA. This study aims to identify DTD2's role in protecting plants from metabolically generated aldehydes, elucidating its mechanism of chiral selectivity and adduct activity, and identifying key residues involved in its biochemical activities. Understanding molecular determinants providing aldehyde modification specificity in DTD2 can help engineer DTD2 protein for a broader range of protection from various cellular metabolites.