Some important AA sites within the protein sequence are: 431 – which is one amino acid long, a proton donor and a binding site for thiamine pyrophosphate; 167 – which is one amino acid long and one metal binding site; 197 - which is one amino acid long and a binding site for both magnesium and thiamine pyrophosphate; 76 and 459 – which are both one amino acid long and binding sites for thiamine pyrophosphate; 273 – which is one amino acid long, a binding site for thiamine pyrophosphate, and an essential site for catalytic activity; and 126 to 128 – which, collectively, comprise three amino acids in length and are the sites for nucleotide binding of thiamine pyrophosphate. The actual sequence chain begins with 2 and ends with 706 (Sakai et al, 1998); the first in the sequence (“1”) is removed as the methionine initiator. However, “the family tree”