<p>Several agrobacteria cause neoplastic diseases in plants, including crown gall disease (<taxon tax_id="358">Agrobacterium tumefaciens</taxon>) and hairy root disease (<taxon tax_id="359">Agrobacterium rhizogenes</taxon>). The mechanism involves transfer via infective plasmids and subsequent expression of both oncogenes and genes for the synthesis of opines, which can be specifically used as nutrients by the invading bacteria [<cite idref="PUB00027926"/>]. Opines are low molecular weight amino acid and sugar phosphate derivatives, e.g., octopine, agropine, and mannopine. The proteins in this group are products of the <i>mas1</i> genes (and homologues) encoding the reductase that produces mannopine from deoxyfructosylglutamine. Subsequently, mannopine can be lactonized to form agropine. The C-terminal short chain dehydrogenase domain (<db_xref db="INTERPRO" dbkey="IPR002198"/>) is coupled with an N-terminal phosphoglycerate mutase family domain (<db_xref db="INTERPRO" dbkey="IPR013078"/>), the role of which is unknown [<cite idref="PUB00027978"/>]. Sequences reported from Ti plasmid pTiC58 are missing half [<cite idref="PUB00027844"/>, <cite idref="PUB00027843"/>] or all of the N-terminal domain.</p>