Publications by authors named "Carlos L Ahumada-Manuel"

Alginates are a family of polymers composed of guluronate and mannuronate monomers joined by β (1-4) links. The different types of alginates have variations in their monomer content and molecular weight, which determine the rheological properties and their applications. In industry, alginates are commonly used as additives capable of viscosifying, stabilizing, emulsifying, and gelling aqueous solutions.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The genus belonging to the family, is characterized by the formation of cysts, which are metabolically dormant cells produced under adverse conditions and able to resist desiccation. Although this developmental process has served as a model for the study of cell differentiation in Gram-negative bacteria, the molecular basis of its regulation is still poorly understood. Here, we report that the ubiquitous second messenger cyclic dimeric GMP (c-di-GMP) is critical for the formation of cysts in Upon encystment induction, the levels of c-di-GMP increased, reaching a peak within the first 6 h.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

produces the linear exopolysaccharide alginate, a compound of significant biotechnological importance. The biosynthesis of alginate in and has several similarities but is regulated somewhat differently in the two microbes. Here, we show that the second messenger cyclic dimeric GMP (c-di-GMP) regulates the production and the molecular mass of alginate in The hybrid protein MucG, containing conserved GGDEF and EAL domains and N-terminal HAMP and PAS domains, behaved as a c-di-GMP phosphodiesterase (PDE).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Alginates are polysaccharides that are of interest in various industrial applications. This is due to the viscosifying properties of alginates, which depends on the weight-average molecular weight. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the changes in alginate quality, in terms of the viscosifying power and weight-average molecular weight of the polymer produced by mutant strains in shake flasks under microaerophilic conditions.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Azotobacter vinelandii is a nitrogen-fixing bacterium of the Pseudomonadaceae family that prefers the use of organic acids rather than carbohydrates. Thus, in a mixture of acetate-glucose, glucose is consumed only after acetate is exhausted. In a previous work, we investigated the molecular basis of this carbon catabolite repression (CCR) process under diazotrophic conditions.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Azotobacter vinelandii, belonging to the Pseudomonadaceae family, is a free-living bacterium that has been considered to be a good source for the production of bacterial polymers such as alginate. In A. vinelandii the synthesis of this polymer is regulated by the Gac/Rsm post-transcriptional regulatory system, in which the RsmA protein binds to the mRNA of the biosynthetic algD gene, inhibiting translation.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Azotobacter vinelandii is a soil bacterium that produces the polysaccharide alginate. In this work, we identified a miniTn5 mutant, named GG9, which showed increased alginate production of higher molecular mass, and increased expression of the alginate biosynthetic genes algD and alg8 when compared to its parental strain. The miniTn5 was inserted within ORF Avin07920 encoding a hypothetical protein.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF