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Home Journal Highlights Genome Sequenced for Clostridium with Biomass Potential
Genome Sequenced for Clostridium with Biomass Potential Print E-mail

 

Clostridium cellulovorans 743B is an anaerobic and mesophilic spore-forming bacterium that may prove useful for production of fuels from biomass. It was originally isolated from a wood-chip pile and can degrade such soft biomass substrates as corn fiber and rice straw through its extracellular enzyme complex called the cellulosome. Yutaka Tamaru of Mie Uniersity, Mie, Japan, et al. have just sequenced the organism's genome. The cellulosome consists of a large scaffolding protein and nine enzymatic subunits, including cellulases, hemicellulases, and pectate lysates. "Since C. cellulovorans has the ability to degrade plant cell wall, we are going to use it for pretreatment and saccharification of soft biomass," says Tamaru. The sequence also revealed two novel scaffolding proteins, CbpB and CbpC, each of which has a cohesin domain, which are of a type never before seen in clostridia. The researchers plan to do functional proteomics. "Our ultimate goal is to elucidate the machinery and synergism between the cellulosome and noncellulosomal enzymes," says Tamaru.

(Y. Tamaru, H. Miyake, K. Kuroda, A. Nakanishi, Y. Kawade, K. Yamamoto, M. Uemura, Y. Fujita, R. H. Doi, and M. Ueda. 2010. Genome sequence of the celluosome-producing mesophilic organism Clostridium cellulovorans 743B. J. Bacteriol. 192:901-902.)