Project description:Clostridium acetobutylicum is a Gram-positive, endospore-forming bacterium that is considered as a strict anaerobe. It ferments sugars to the organic acids acetate and butyrate or shifts to formation of the solvents - ethanol, butanol and acetone. In most bacteria the major regulator of iron homeostasis is Fur (ferric uptake regulator). Analysis of the genome of Clostridium acetobutylicum has revealed three genes encoding Fur-like proteins. The amino acid sequece of one of them showed 70% similarity to the Fur protein of the closely related Bacillus subtilis.<br>Thus, to gain insight into the role of Fur and the mechanisms for maintenance of iron homeostasis in this strict anaerobic organism, we determined its transcriptional profile in response to iron limitation and inactivation of fur.
Project description:Clostridium perfringens is an anaerobic, gram-positive, spore-forming bacterium spread throughout the environment. This bacterium is a common agent in the gastrointestinal tracts of healthy human beings and other mammals. Simultaneously, this agent is one of the most significant producers of toxins among all known bacteria. This expressive toxicity is due to the bacterium’s ability collectively to produce different protein toxins and/or enzymes with diverse modes of action. The present study uses currently developed targeted proteomic methods for the simultaneous detection of selected C. perfringens protein toxins. The method was applied in different kinds of environmental matrices and was used to analyze toxins production in a set of collection strains.
Project description:Diversity and specificity of extracellular proteome in the cellulolytic bacterium Caldicellulosiruptor bescii is driven by the nature of the cellulosic substrate
Project description:Clostridium thermocellum is a Gram-positive, anaerobic, thermophilic bacterium that ferments cellulose into ethanol. It is a candidate industrial consolidated bioprocess (CBP) biocatalyst for lignocellulosic bioethanol production to produce bioethanol directly from cellulosic biomass. However, few transcriptomic studies have been reported so far for C. thermocellum using biomass as carbon source. In this study, samples were taken from exponential and stationary phases of C. thermocellum cells growing in MTC media with pretreated switchgrass as carbon source, and transcriptomic profiling change of C. thermocellum during different growth phase was investigated using both expression array and tiling array. This study will help the understanding of gene expression of C. thermocellum using cellulosic biomass as carbon source and the knowledge will facilitate future metabolic engineering effort for strain improvement.
Project description:This study compares growth of Ruminococcus flavefaciens FD-1 with cellulose or cellobiose as the carbohydrate substrate. Ruminococcus flavefaciens is a predominant cellulolytic rumen bacterium, which forms a multi-enzyme cellulosome complex that could play an integral role in the ability of this bacterium to degrade plant cell wall polysaccharides. Identifying the major enzyme types involved in plant cell wall degradation is essential for gaining a better understanding of the cellulolytic capabilities of this organism as well as highlighting potential enzymes for application to improvement of livestock nutrition and for conversion of cellulosic biomass to liquid fuels. These results show that the growth substrate drives expression of enzymes predicted to be involved in carbohydrate metabolism as well as expression and assembly of key cellulosomal enzyme components.
