Polyamines are primordial polycations found in most cells and perform different functions in different organisms. Although polyamines are mainly known for their essential roles in cell growth and proliferation, their functions range from a critical role in cellular translation in eukaryotes and archaea, to bacterial biofilm formation and specialized roles in natural product biosynthesis. At first glance, the diversity of polyamine structures in different organisms appears chaotic; however, biosynthetic flexibility and evolutionary and ecological processes largely explain this heterogeneity. In this review, I discuss the biosynthetic, evolutionary, and physiological processes that constrain or expand polyamine structural and functional diversity.
Keywords: archaea; bacterial metabolism; biosynthetic diversity; convergent evolution; endosymbiotic gene transfer; eukaryotic initiation factor 5A (eIF5A); evolution; horizontal gene transfer; hypusine; polyamine.
© 2016 by The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Inc.