Anaerobic chamber

我的实验室研究严格厌氧产甲烷菌。它们是区别于细菌和真核细胞的所谓第三生命领域的成员。虽然最初认为它们只在各种极端环境中重要，但现在人们知道它们是世界性的，在各种全球生态系统中都很重要。尽管从生态学和许多其他方面来看，古菌具有重要意义，但由于多种原因，包括栽培困难和普遍缺乏遗传系统，古菌生理学、生物化学和遗传学的许多基本方面仍未得到充分研究。我们以马里帕鲁氏甲烷球菌鞭毛系统为模型，研究蛋白质的分泌和翻译后修饰，特别是糖基化和信号肽的去除。这些研究还表明，古细菌鞭毛系统是一种完全不同于细菌鞭毛的全新运动结构，我们正在寻求答案，这种不寻常的细胞器是如何组装和功能的。改良的遗传技术使研究人员能够有效地操纵我们的模式生物M. maripaludis，因此我们现在可以制造各种突变体，并进行各种遗传实验，以回答5年前甚至不可能解决的关键问题。然而，为了做到这一点，细胞需要在严格的厌氧条件下进行处理和电镀，只有在氧气水平低于5ppm的极高效厌氧室中才有可能。这就是我们要的设备。这对这个研究项目的推进和我的学生在论文工作中的进展至关重要。

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.