Hydroxypyruvate reductase was purified to homogeneity from the facultative methylotroph Methylobacterium extorquens AM1. It has a molecular mass of about 71 kDa, and it consists of two identical subunits with a molecular mass of about 37 kDa. This enzyme uses both NADH (Km = 0.04 mM) and NADPH (Km = 0.06 mM) as cofactors, uses hydroxypyruvate (Km = 0.1 mM) and glyoxylate (Km = 1.5 mM) as the on...

Several modifications that have been made to the NDDO core-core interaction term and to the method of parameter optimization are described. These changes have resulted in a more complete parameter optimization, called PM6, which has, in turn, allowed 70 elements to be parameterized. The average unsigned error (AUE) between calculated and reference heats of formation for 4,492 species was 8.0 kc...

We present a combination of semiempirical quantum-mechanical (SQM) calculations in the conductor-like screening model with the MM/GBSA (molecular-mechanics with generalized Born and surface-area solvation) method for ligand-binding affinity calculations. We test three SQM Hamiltonians, AM1, RM1, and PM6, as well as hydrogen-bond corrections and two different dispersion corrections. As test case...

The conformational analysis of ethylene-norbornene chains (E-N) has been carried out using AM1, MM2, AMBER and OPLS methods taking into consideration the possibility of binding the ethylene monomers to norbornene monomers at various positions, i.e. exo-exo, exo-endo, endo-endo. The chain that is formed by connecting exo-endo positions of the monomers has lower torsional barrier energy than thos...

Theoretical studies on anthracene and a series of its derivatives were performed using the AM1 method and DFT. Based on B3LYP/6-31G(d) optimized geometries, the electronic, IR and NMR spectra of anthracene oligomers were calculated using the Indo/Cis, AM1 and B3LYP/6-31G(d) methods, respectively. The energy gaps of the oligomers decreased and the main absorptions in the electronic spectra of th...

The semiempirical methods of the OMx family (orthogonalization models OM1, OM2, and OM3) are known to describe biochemical systems more accurately than standard semiempirical approaches such as AM1. We investigate the benefits of augmenting these methods with an empirical dispersion term (OMx-D) taken from recent density functional work, without modifying the standard OMx parameters. Significan...

The gene (glyA) of Methylobacterium extorquens AM1 encoding serine hydroxymethyltransferase (SHMT), one of the key enzymes of the serine cycle for C1 assimilation, was isolated by using a synthetic oligonucleotide with a sequence based on amino acid sequence conserved in SHMTs from different sources. The amino acid sequence deduced from the gene revealed high similarity to those of known SHMTs....

The aim of this study was to assess the feasibility of using temporal temperature gradient electrophoresis (TTGE) of PCR-amplified 18S rDNA fragments of different Glomus species for their detection and characterization. Screening of Glomus clarum, Glomus constrictum, Glomus coronatum, Glomus intraradices, Glomus mosseae and Glomus viscosum by PCR-TGGE revealed that the NS31-AM1 region of the 18...