Document Type

Article

Original Publication Date

2012

Journal/Book/Conference Title

BMC Microbiology

Volume

8

DOI of Original Publication

10.1186/1471-2180-11-22

Comments

Originally published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2180-11-22

Date of Submission

August 2014

Abstract

Background Clostridium thermocellum is a Gram-positive thermophilic anaerobic bacterium with the unusual capacity to convert cellulosic biomass into ethanol and hydrogen. Identification and characterization of protein complexes in C. thermocellum are important toward understanding its metabolism and physiology.

Results A two dimensional blue native/SDS-PAGE procedure was developed to separate membrane protein complexes of C. thermocellum. Proteins spots were identified by MALDI-TOF/TOF Mass spectrometry. 24 proteins were identified representing 13 distinct protein complexes, including several putative intact complexes. Interestingly, subunits of both the F1-F0-ATP synthase and the V1-V0-ATP synthase were detected in the membrane sample, indicating C. thermocellum may use alternative mechanisms for ATP generation.

Conclusion Two dimensional blue native/SDS-PAGE was used to detect membrane protein complexes in C. thermocellum. More than a dozen putative protein complexes were identified, revealing the simultaneous expression of two sets of ATP synthase. The protocol developed in this work paves the way for further functional characterization of these protein complexes.

Rights

© 2011 Peng et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Is Part Of

VCU Physiology and Biophysics Publications

1471-2180-11-22-s1.pdf (65 kB)
Results of ATPase search in published genomes of eubacteria from NCBI. Table listing the eubacteria which contain F-type ATPase, V-type ATPase or both F-type and V-type ATPases.

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