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Evgenii Protasov

Doctoral Researcher, RG Brune
MPI for Terrestrial Microbiology
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Project: The role of cyt bd oxidase of Methanosarcinales in microaerobic respiration

Project summary:
Methanogens are strictly anaerobic archaea that produce methane as part of their
energy metabolism. In my project, I am studying the methanogens associated with the digestive tracts of termites, cockroaches and millipedes, using cultivation-based and metagenomic approaches. Recently, I have isolated six new species of Methanosarcinales from the gut of cockroaches and millipedes. Genome analysis revealed that all isolates encode high-affinity bd oxidases which might be involved in oxygen detoxification.
However, they also often present in many aerobic bacteria and are part of oxygen respiration system. Yet microaerobic respiratory processes has not been described for methanogens. I would like to study the role of bd oxidases in oxygen reduction in Methanosarcinales and their phylogenetic origin. In parallel, I want to demonstrate the oxygen-reducing activity of pure cultures and the effect of oxygen fluxes on methanogenesis. Also, I plan to use the cell suspensions exposed to different oxygen regimens to identify the genes responding to the presence of oxygen in a transcriptomic approach.

Cooperation with: : Judith Klatt (MEC, UMR), Seigo Shima (MPI-TM), Jan Schuller (SYNMIKRO, UMR)

Cooperation Partners