Phosphoribosylglycinamide formyltransferase catalyzes the third step in de novo purine biosynthesis, the transfer of a formyl group to 5'-phosphoribosylglycinamide. In higher eukaryotes, GART is part of a multifunctional enzyme polypeptide that catalyzes three of the steps of purine biosynthesis. In bacteria, plants and yeast, GART is a monofunctional protein of about 200 amino-acid residues.

In the Escherichia coli enzyme, an aspartic acid residue has been shown to be involved in the catalytic mechanism. The region around this active site residue is well conserved in GART from prokaryotic and eukaryotic sources and can be used as a signature pattern.
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