Reduced one Carbon Biosynthetic Pathways of the Methanogen Methanosphaera stadtmanae

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This project will study a methanogen with unusual physiological attributes--the inability to produce methane from either carbon dioxide or acetate, but to do so from methanol provided that hydrogen is present. Surprising is the fact that a great deal of carbon of cell components is derived from acetate or carbon dioxide and little from methanol; it is this latter aspect of biosynthesis that is the focus of investigations that will use 13-C labelled acetate or carbon dioxide, followed by high-resolution NMR studies, to elucidate key carbon-entrance pathways using intact cells and cell extracts. Key enzymatic reactions and coenzyme requirements of central reactions of the apparently unusual reduced one-carbon biosynthetic pathway(s) will also be studied. The study of a physiologically-unusual methanogenic archaebacterium, with the goal of understanding the means by which acetate and carbon dioxide carbon are built into cellular components is the focus of this project which involves collaboration between microbiologists and chemists. //