Spontaneous bacterial peritonitis (SBP) is a recognized cause of morbidity and mortality in cirrhotic patients. Enterobacteriaceae have been isolated from the majority of peritonitis cases and the gram negative aerobe Escherichia coli is the most commonly isolated organism. Anaerobic organisms are rarely isolated because of the high oxygen tension in ascetic fluid. We report a patient with a hi...

Alternative microbial hosts have been engineered as biocatalysts for butanol biosynthesis. The butanol synthetic pathway of Clostridium acetobutylicum was first re-constructed in Escherichia coli to establish a baseline for comparison to other hosts. Whereas polycistronic expression of the pathway genes resulted in the production of 34 mg/L butanol, individual expression of pathway genes elevat...

The isolation of a new class of mutants permitting facultative anaerobiosis in Neurospora crassa is described. Backcross analyses to the obligate aerobe prototroph (An(-)) indicate single nuclear gene inheritance (An(-)/An(+)). An(+) and An(-) are indistinguishable in morphology and growth rates under aerobic conditions. Anaerobic growth requires nutritional supplements that are dispensable for...

A novel chitin-degrading aerobe, Chitinibacter tainanensis, was isolated from a soil sample from southern Taiwan, and was proved to produce N-acetyl glucosamine (NAG). Chitin degrading factors (CDFs) were proposed to be the critical factors to degrade chitin in this work. When C. tainanensis was incubated with chitin, CDFs were induced and chitin was converted to NAG. CDFs were found to be loca...

The discovery of hydrogenase in Azotobacter cells (1) raises the question of its function in the metabolism of this organism. This enzyme is usually found in anaerobic or facultative anaerobic bacteria which liberate Hz from certain substrates. Azotobacter is a strict aerobe, and its metabolism consists primarily in the simple oxidation of substrate to carbon dioxide and water. Although not con...

Investigations into the nature of the metabolism of glucose in Acetobacter suboxydans have revealed that both the pentose cycle (1) and a direct nonphosphorylative oxidation (2) contribute to the consumption of this substrate. Fructose, in like manner, dissimilates by way of the pentose pathway (3) as does glycerol, after its conversion to fructose-l ,6-diphosphate via triose phosphate (1,4). S...

Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) is an obligate aerobe that is capable of long-term persistence under conditions of low oxygen tension. Analysis of the Mtb genome predicts the existence of a branched aerobic respiratory chain terminating in a cytochrome bd system and a cytochrome aa(3) system. Both chains can be initiated with type II NADH:menaquinone oxidoreductase. We present a detailed bioch...