Although this enzyme is able to bind numerous types of substrates, such as phosphorylated and nonphosphorylated monosaccharides including the keto and aldosugars fructose, ribose, etc., it has a high specificity for the stereoconfiguration of the hydroxyl groups of the sugars. These hydroxyl groups at C-3 and C-4 of the ketose donor must be in the D-"threo" configuration in order to correctly correspond to the C-1 and C-2 positions on the aldose acceptor. Also they stabilize the substrate in the active site by interacting with the Asp477, His30, and His263 residues. Disruption of this configuration, both the placement of hydroxyl groups or their stereochemistry, would consequently alter the H-bonding between the residues and substrates thus causing a lower affinity for the substrates.