An open question of great interest in biophysics is whether variations in structure cause protein folds to differ in the number of amino acid sequences that can fold to them stably, i.e., in their designability. Recently, we have shown that a novel quantitative measure of a fold's tertiary topology, called its contact trace, strongly correlates with the fold's designability. Here, we investigat...

Inulinase and Invertase Activities, Thermophilic Bacilli, Enzyme Thermostability Enzyme production of newly isolated thermophilic inulin-degrading Bacillus sp. 11 strain was studied by batch cultivation in a fermentor. The achieved inulinase and invertase activities after a short growth time (4.25 h) were similar or higher compared to those reported for other mesophilic aerobic or anaerobic the...

The Heart Lake Geyser Basin (HLGB) is remotely located at the base of Mount Sheridan in southern Yellowstone National Park (YNP), Wyoming, USA and is situated along Witch Creek and the northwestern shore of Heart Lake. Likely because of its location, little is known about the microbial community structure of springs in the HLGB. Bacterial and archaeal populations were monitored via small subuni...

Using a previously developed filter adsorption technique, the inactivation of a human rotavirus, a coxsackievirus B5, and a bovine parvovirus was monitored during sludge treatment processes. During conventional anaerobic mesophilic digestion at 35 to 36 degrees C, only minor inactivation of all three viruses occurred. The k' values measured were 0.314 log10 unit/day for rotavirus, 0.475 log10 u...

BACKGROUND Over the past 3 years, the CRISPR/Cas9 system has revolutionized the field of genome engineering. However, its application has not yet been validated in thermophilic fungi. Myceliophthora thermophila, an important thermophilic biomass-degrading fungus, has attracted industrial interest for the production of efficient thermostable enzymes. Genetic manipulation of Myceliophthora is cru...

The thermophilic bacilli, such as Anoxybacillus flavithermus and Geobacillus spp., are an important group of contaminants in the dairy industry. Although these bacilli are generally not pathogenic, their presence in dairy products is an indicator of poor hygiene and high numbers are unacceptable to customers. In addition, their growth may result in milk product defects caused by the production ...

So far retinylidene proteins (∼rhodopsin) have not been discovered in thermophilic organisms. In this study we investigated and characterized a microbial rhodopsin derived from the extreme thermophilic bacterium Thermus thermophilus, which lives in a hot spring at around 75 °C. The gene for the retinylidene protein, named thermophilic rhodopsin (TR), was chemically synthesized with codon optimi...

There has been an increase in community-associated Clostridium difficile infections with biosolids derived from wastewater treatment being identified as one potential source. The current study evaluated the efficacy of thermophilic digestion in decreasing levels of C. difficile ribotype 078 associated with sewage sludge. Five isolates of C. difficile 078 were introduced (final density of 5 log ...

A mesophilic (37 C) and a thermophilic (55 C) two-chamber microbial fuel cell (MFC) were studied and compared for their power production from xylose and the microbial communities involved. The anodeattached, membrane-attached, and planktonic microbial communities, and their respective active subpopulations, were determined by next generation sequencing (Illumina MiSeq), based on the presence an...

We probe the hypothesis of corresponding states, according to which homologues from mesophilic and thermophilic organisms are in corresponding states of similar rigidity and flexibility at their respective optimal temperatures. For this, the local distribution of flexible and rigid regions in 19 pairs of homologous proteins from meso- and thermophilic organisms is analyzed and related to activi...