Treponema phagedenis Kazan 5 is a spirochete with multiple periplasmic flagella attached near each end of the cell cylinder. Dark-field microscopy revealed that most of the cell is right-handed (helix diameter, 0.23 micron; helix pitch, 1.74 microns), and the ends appear bent. These ends could move and gyrate while the central part of the cell remained stationary. The present study examines the...

Antibody-based drugs are increasingly used in the clinic, and their importance is set to escalate in the coming years as more drugs in this class progress through clinical trials. Although many such drugs utilize whole antibodies, others exploit fragments, e.g., fragment antigen binding (Fab') or single-chain fragment variable (scFv), which retain the antigen-binding specificity without the fra...

AmtB, a member of the Rh/Amt/MEP superfamily, is responsible for ammonia transport in Escherichia coli. The ammonia pathway in AmtB consists of a narrow hydrophobic lumen in between hydrophilic periplasmic and cytoplasmic vestibules. A series of molecular dynamics simulations (greater than 0.4 μs in total) were performed to determine the mechanism of solute recruitments and selectivity by the p...

The Pathway Tools cellular overview diagram is a visual representation of the biochemical network of an organism. The overview is automatically created from a Pathway/Genome Database describing that organism. The cellular overview includes metabolic, transport and signaling pathways, and other membrane and periplasmic proteins. Pathway Tools supports interrogation and exploration of cellular bi...

The development of new procedures and protocols that allow researchers to obtain recombinant proteins is of fundamental importance in the biotechnology field. A strategy was explored to overcome inclusion-body formation observed when expressing an aggregation-prone fungal xylanase in Escherichia coli. pHsh is an expression plasmid that uses a synthetic heat-shock (Hsh) promoter, in which gene e...

The Sinorhizobium meliloti megaplasmid pSymA has previously been implicated in gluconate utilization. We report a locus on pSymA encoding a putative tripartite ATP-independent periplasmic (TRAP) transporter that is required for gluconate utilization. The expression of this locus is negatively regulated by a GntR family regulator encoded adjacent to the transporter operon.

To understand the mechanisms underlying the increased N2O reductase activity in the Bradyrhizobium japonicum 5M09 mutant from enrichment culture under N2O respiration, we analyzed the expression of genes encoding denitrification reductases and regulators. Our results suggest a common regulation of nap (encoding periplasmic nitrate reductase) and nos (encoding N2O reductase).