Project description:The goal of this work was to elucidate the mechanism by which pyruvate is utilized as a substrate in a mutant strain of Methanosarcina barkeri Fusaro. In this study, using RNAseq we gained insight into how the mutant strain modulate its transcriptional profile in order to use pyruvate as a substrate. In addition, we obtained information on how methanogens respond to pyruvate at the transcriptional level. The mRNA from of Methanosarcina barkeri Fusaro DSMZ804 and Pyr+ strains grown on a variety of substrates (methanol, acetate, methanol-acetate, methanol-pyruvate, methanol-pyruvate-acetate) were harvested sequenced and mapped to M. barkeri genome. Pairwise comparisons between two cell lines of the Pyr+ strain and the DSMZ 804 strain were performed in all substrates tested.