Pantothenate is the essential precursor of coenzyme A (CoA), a fundamental cofactor in all aspects of metabolism. Structural domains comprising this superfamily share the structure of two recently identified archaea enzymes, pantoate kinase (PoK) and phosphopantothenate synthetase (PPS) PMID:24638914. The latter is also known as 4-phosphopantoate-beta-alanine ligase.

These two enzymes are the counterparts to the PS/PanK pathway in bacteria and eukaryotes which catalyze the last step in the pantothenate biosynthetic pathway and the later phosphorylation of pantothenate for its entry into the CoA biosynthetic pathway respectively.

Homologs of genes encoding PS and PPS are distributed in almost all archaeal genomes PMID:24021277.