Anaerobic chamber

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My lab works on the stringently anaerobic methanogens. They are members of the so called third domain of life distinct from bacteria and eukaryotic cells. While originally thought to be only important in a variety of extremophilic habitats, they are now known to be cosmopolitan and important in various global ecosystems. Though important ecologically and from a number of other aspects, for a combination of reasons, including difficulty in cultivation and general lack of genetic systems, many basic aspects of archaeal physiology, biochemistry and genetics remain poorly studied. We use the flagella system of Methanococcus maripaludis as a model to study protein secretion and posttranslational modification of proteins especially their glycosylation and signal peptide removal. These studies also demonstrated that the archaeal flagella system is a completely novel motility structure distinct from bacterial flagella and we are seeking to answer how this unusual organelle is assembled and functions. Improved genetic techniques have allowed researchers to effectively manipulate our model organism, M. maripaludis, so that we can now make a variety of mutants and do a variety of genetic experiments to answer key questions not possible even 5 years ago. However in order to do this the cells need to be handled and plated under stringently anaerobic conditions only possible within an extremely efficient anaerobic chamber where the oxygen levels are kept below 5ppm. This is the equipment we are requesting here. It is critical to the advancement of this research program and to my students' progress in their thesis work.