<p>The PASTA domain is found at the C-termini of several Penicillin-binding proteins (PBP) and bacterial serine/threonine kinases. It binds the beta-lactam stem, which implicates it in sensing D-alanyl-D-alanine - the PBP transpeptidase substrate. In PknB of <taxon tax_id="1773">Mycobacterium tuberculosis</taxon> (<db_xref db="SWISSPROT" dbkey="P71584"/>), all of the extracellular portion is predicted to be made up of four PASTA domains, which strongly suggests that it is a signal-binding sensordomain. The domain has also been found in proteins involved in cell wall biosynthesis, where it is implicated in localizing thebiosynthesis complex to unlinked peptidoglycan.</p> <p>PASTA is a small globular fold consisting of 3 beta-sheets and an alpha-helix, with a loop region of variable length between the first andsecond beta-strands. The name PASTA is derived from PBP and Serine/Threonine kinase Associated domain [<cite idref="PUB00007872"/>].</p> PASTA