Faculty Opinions recommendation of Novel thermoactive glucoamylases from the thermoacidophilic Archaea Thermoplasma acidophilum, Picrophilus torridus and Picrophilus oshimae.

Author(s):  
James Coker
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean Lund ◽  
Taylor Courtney ◽  
Gavin Williams

Isoprenoids are a large class of natural products with wide-ranging applications. Synthetic biology approaches to the manufacture of isoprenoids and their new-to-nature derivatives are limited due to the provision in Nature of just two hemiterpene building blocks for isoprenoid biosynthesis. To address this limitation, artificial chemo-enzymatic pathways such as the alcohol-dependent hemiterpene pathway (ADH) serve to leverage consecutive kinases to convert exogenous alcohols to pyrophosphates that could be coupled to downstream isoprenoid biosynthesis. To be successful, each kinase in this pathway should be permissive of a broad range of substrates. For the first time, we have probed the promiscuity of the second enzyme in the ADH pathway, isopentenyl phosphate kinase from Thermoplasma acidophilum, towards a broad range of acceptor monophosphates. Subsequently, we evaluate the suitability of this enzyme to provide non-natural pyrophosphates and provide a critical first step in characterizing the rate limiting steps in the artificial ADH pathway.<br>


2020 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neelja Singhal ◽  
Archana Sharma ◽  
Manisha Aswal ◽  
Nirpendra Singh ◽  
Manish Kumar ◽  
...  

Background:: CsaA is among the few chaperones which are present in both bacteria and archaea, but absent in eukaryotes. There are no reports on interactome analysis of CsaA from archaea, till date. Identification of binding partners of CsaA might be helpful in understanding CsaA-associated processes in Picrophilus torridus– an extreme thermoaci-dophilic euryarchaeon. Objectives:: The present study was conducted to identify the binding partners of CsaA of P. torridus (PtCsaA). Methods:: The binding partners of PtCsaA were isolated and identified using a pull down assay and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS). Results:: The results revealed twelve potential binding partners of CsaA. These were thermosome subunits (Q6KZS2 and Q6L132), nascent polypeptide-associated complex protein (Q6L1N3), elongation factor 1-alpha (Q6L202), uncharacterized protein (Q6L0Y6), citrate synthase (Q6L0M8), asparaginyl-tRNA synthetase (Q6L0M5), succinyl-CoA synthetase beta chain (Q6L0B4), pyruvate ferredoxin oxidoreductase alpha and beta chain proteins (Q6KZA7 and Q6KZA6, respectively), malate dehydrogenase (Q6L0C3) and reversed fumarylacetoacetase (Q6KZ97). Functional categorization revealed that of these, six proteins were involved in energy metabolic pathways, three were archaeal chaperones, two were involved in trans-lation and one might be a transcription regulator. STRING-based analysis of the protein-protein interactions of the experi-mental interactome revealed strong interactions among them. Conclusion:: PtCsaA might be a multifaceted protein which besides translation might also play important role in metabolic processes of P. torridus. However, further experiments investigating the binding partners of CsaA in other archaea are re-quired for a better understanding of CsaA-associated processes in archaea.


1980 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 990-994
Author(s):  
Robert C. Seid ◽  
Paul F. Smith ◽  
Gabriel Guevarra ◽  
H. Donald Hochstein ◽  
Michael F. Barile

Lipoglycans (previously designated lipopolysaccharides) from several species of Acholeplasma and from Thermoplasma acidophilum were examined for endotoxin-like activities as measured by the standard rabbit fever test and the Limulus amoebocyte lysate assay. The lipoglycans from Acholeplasma granularum, Achloplasma laidlawii, Acholeplasma modicum , and Acholeplasma oculi caused a febrile response at concentrations of 1 ng/ml per kg or greater, whereas with control Escherichia coli EC-2 lipopolysaccharides, 6.25 ng/ml per kg was required. Similar results were obtained in the Limulus amoebocyte lysate test. The minimum concentrations in nanograms per milliliter required to stimulate formation of a solid clot were: Acholeplasma axanthum , 0.22; A. granularum , 0.85; A. modicum , 0.51; A. laidlawii , 1.05; A. oculi , 0.74. Standard E. coli 1B lipopolysaccharide required a concentration of 0.125 ng/ml. Thermoplasma lipoglycan was least active, requiring 4.25 ng/ml. Clotting of the Limulus lysate proceeds by the activation by lipopolysaccharide plus Ca 2+ of a proenzyme which cleaves an arginine-lysine peptide bond of the coagulogen. The clotting and amidase activities are inactivated by deoxycholate and can be reactivated by addition of lipopolysaccharide and Ca 2+ . As with E. coli 1B lipopolysaccharide, acholeplasmal lipoglycans were shown to restore both clotting and amidase activities of the deoxycholate-inactivated Limulus clotting enzyme. The degree of restoration of amidase activity by mycoplasmal lipoglycans relative to E. coli lipopolysaccharide (1.00) were: A. axanthum , 1.71; A. modicum , 1.22; A. granularum , 0.61; and Thermoplasma , 0.37. The coagulating enzyme, restored with either E. coli lipopolysaccharide or mycoplasmal lipoglycans, was able to react with the synthetic peptide benzoyl-Ile-Glu-(γ-OCH 3 )-Gly-p-nitroaniline (an analog of the coagulogen) or with the purified coagulogen itself to form the clot. The mycoplasmal lipoglycans alone were incapable of promoting these reactions when incubated with the synthetic peptide or with the purified coagulogen, thereby ruling out the contamination of these lipoglycans with proteases capable of cleaving the same Arg-Lys peptide bond of the coagulogen. These results show that acholeplasmal lipoglycans possess endotoxin-like activities. Their passive or active role in disease remains to be established.


ACS Omega ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (8) ◽  
pp. 4180-4187 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dwi Susanti ◽  
Usha Loganathan ◽  
Austin Compton ◽  
Biswarup Mukhopadhyay

eLife ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antoine Hocher ◽  
Maria Rojec ◽  
Jacob B Swadling ◽  
Alexander Esin ◽  
Tobias Warnecke

Histones are a principal constituent of chromatin in eukaryotes and fundamental to our understanding of eukaryotic gene regulation. In archaea, histones are widespread but not universal: several lineages have lost histone genes. What prompted or facilitated these losses and how archaea without histones organize their chromatin remains largely unknown. Here, we elucidate primary chromatin architecture in an archaeon without histones, Thermoplasma acidophilum, which harbors a HU family protein (HTa) that protects part of the genome from micrococcal nuclease digestion. Charting HTa-based chromatin architecture in vitro, in vivo and in an HTa-expressing E. coli strain, we present evidence that HTa is an archaeal histone analog. HTa preferentially binds to GC-rich sequences, exhibits invariant positioning throughout the growth cycle, and shows archaeal histone-like oligomerization behavior. Our results suggest that HTa, a DNA-binding protein of bacterial origin, has converged onto an architectural role filled by histones in other archaea.


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