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Journal of Bacteriology, December 2000, p. 6645-6650, Vol. 182, No. 23
Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial
Microbiology, 35043 Marburg, Germany,1 and
Department of Microbiology2 and
Department of Chemical Engineering,3
University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195
Received 22 June 2000/Accepted 21 September 2000
Formaldehyde is toxic for all organisms from bacteria to humans due
to its reactivity with biological macromolecules. Organisms that grow
aerobically on single-carbon compounds such as methanol and methane
face a special challenge in this regard because formaldehyde is a
central metabolic intermediate during methylotrophic growth. In the
0021-9193/00/$04.00+0
Copyright © 2000, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.
Novel Formaldehyde-Activating Enzyme in
Methylobacterium extorquens AM1 Required for Growth on
Methanol
-proteobacterium Methylobacterium extorquens AM1, we
found a previously unknown enzyme that efficiently catalyzes the
removal of formaldehyde: it catalyzes the condensation of formaldehyde and tetrahydromethanopterin to methylene tetrahydromethanopterin, a
reaction which also proceeds spontaneously, but at a lower rate than
that of the enzyme-catalyzed reaction. Formaldehyde-activating enzyme
(Fae) was purified from M. extorquens AM1 and found to be
one of the major proteins in the cytoplasm. The encoding gene is
located within a cluster of genes for enzymes involved in the further
oxidation of methylene tetrahydromethanopterin to CO2. Mutants of M. extorquens AM1 defective in Fae were able to
grow on succinate but not on methanol and were much more sensitive toward methanol and formaldehyde. Uncharacterized orthologs to this
enzyme are predicted to be encoded by uncharacterized genes from
archaea, indicating that this type of enzyme occurs outside the
methylotrophic bacteria.
*
Corresponding author. Mailing address: Max Planck
Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology, Karl-von-Frisch-Strasse,
D-35043 Marburg, Germany. Phone: (49) 6421-178333. Fax: (49)
6421-178209. E-mail: vorholt{at}mailer.uni-marburg.de.
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