In the first half of this pathway, His263 is used to effectively abstract the C3 hydroxyl proton, which thus allows a 2-carbon segment to be cleaved from fructose 6-phosphate. The cofactor necessary for this step to occur is thiamin pyrophosphate (TPP). The binding of TPP to the enzyme incurs no major conformational change to the enzyme; instead, the enzyme has two flexible loops at the active site that make TPP accessible and binding possible. Thus, this allows the active site to have a "closed" conformation rather than a large conformational change. Later in the pathway, His263 is used as a proton donor for the substrate acceptor-TPP complex, which can then generate erythrose-4-phosphate.