Curation of the genome annotation of Pichia pastoris (Komagataella phaffii) CBS7435 from gene level to protein function.

As manually curated and non-automated BLAST analysis of the published Pichia pastoris genome sequences revealed many differences between the gene annotations of the strains GS115 and CBS7435, RNA-Seq analysis, supported by proteomics, was performed to improve the genome annotation. Detailed analysis of sequence alignment and protein domain predictions were made to extend the functional genome annotation to all P. pastoris sequences.

Industrial production of acetone and butanol by fermentation-100 years later.

Microbial production of acetone and butanol was one of the first large-scale industrial fermentation processes of global importance. During the first part of the 20th century, it was indeed the second largest fermentation process, superseded in importance only by the ethanol fermentation. After a rapid decline after the 1950s, acetone-butanol-ethanol (ABE) fermentation has recently gained renewed interest in the context of biorefinery approaches for the production of fuels and chemicals from renewable resources.

Complete genome sequence and transcriptome regulation of the pentose utilizing yeast Sugiyamaella lignohabitans.

Efficient conversion of hexoses and pentoses into value-added chemicals represents one core step for establishing economically feasible biorefineries from lignocellulosic material. While extensive research efforts have recently provided advances in the overall process performance, the quest for new microbial cell factories and novel enzymes sources is still open. As demonstrated recently the yeast Sugiyamaella lignohabitans (formerly Candida lignohabitans) represents a promising microbial cell factory for the production of organic acids from lignocellulosic hydrolysates.

The plant microbiome explored: implications for experimental botany.

The importance of microbial root inhabitants for plant growth and health was recognized as early as 100 years ago. Recent insights reveal a close symbiotic relationship between plants and their associated microorganisms, and high structural and functional diversity within plant microbiomes. Plants provide microbial communities with specific habitats, which can be broadly categorized as the rhizosphere, phyllosphere, and endosphere.

Metabolomics sampling of Pichia pastoris revisited: rapid filtration prevents metabolite loss during quenching.

Metabolomics can be defined as the quantitative assessment of a large number of metabolites of a biological system. A prerequisite for the accurate determination of intracellular metabolite concentrations is a reliable and reproducible sample preparation method, which needs to be optimized for each organism individually. Here, we compare the performance of rapid filtration and centrifugation after quenching of Pichia pastoris cells in cold methanol.

tEFMA: computing thermodynamically feasible elementary flux modes in metabolic networks.

Unlabelled: : Elementary flux modes (EFMs) are important structural tools for the analysis of metabolic networks. It is known that many topologically feasible EFMs are biologically irrelevant. Therefore, tools are needed to find the relevant ones.

Phosphoryl transfer from α-d-glucose 1-phosphate catalyzed by Escherichia coli sugar-phosphate phosphatases of two protein superfamily types.

The Cori ester α-d-glucose 1-phosphate (αGlc 1-P) is a high-energy intermediate of cellular carbohydrate metabolism. Its glycosidic phosphomonoester moiety primes αGlc 1-P for flexible exploitation in glucosyl and phosphoryl transfer reactions. Two structurally and mechanistically distinct sugar-phosphate phosphatases from Escherichia coli were characterized in this study for utilization of αGlc 1-P as a phosphoryl donor substrate.

Acceleration of an aldo-keto reductase by minimal loop engineering.

Aldo-keto reductases tighten coenzyme binding by forming a hydrogen bond across the pyrophosphate group of NAD(P)(H). Mutation of the hydrogen bonding anchor Lys24 in Candida tenuis xylose reductase prevents fastening of the "safety belt" around NAD(H). The loosened NAD(H) binding leads to increased turnover numbers (k(cat)) for reductions of bulky-bulky ketones at constant substrate and coenzyme affinities (i.