N-terminal catalytic domain of alpha-amylase ( AmyC ) and similar proteins.
Alpha-amylases (alpha-1,4-glucan-4-glucanohydrolases, EC 3.2.1.1) play essential roles in alpha-glucan metabolism by catalyzing the hydrolysis of polysaccharides such as amylose starch, and beta-limit dextrin. This subfamily is represented by a novel alpha-amylase (AmyC) encoded by hyperthermophilic organism Thermotoga maritime ORF tm1438, and its prokaryotic homologs. AmyC functions as a homotetramer and shows thermostable amylolytic activity. It is strongly inhibited by acarbose. AmyC is composed of a N-terminal catalytic domain, containing a distorted TIM-barrel structure with a characteristic (beta/alpha)7 fold motif, and two additional less conserved domains. There are other two canonical alpha-amylases encoded from T. maritime that lack the sequence similarity to AmyC, and belong to a different superfamily.