Exploiting fine-scale genetic and physiological variation of closely related microbes to reveal unknown enzyme functions.

ABSTRACT: Polysaccharide degradation by marine microbes represents one of the largest and most rapid heterotrophic transformations of organic matter in the environment. Microbes employ systems of complementary carbohydrate-specific enzymes to deconstruct algal or plant polysaccharides (glycans) into monosaccharides. Because of the high diversity of glycan substrates, the functions of these enzymes are often difficult to establish. One solution to this problem may lie within naturally occurring microdiversity; varying numbers of enzymes, due to gene loss, duplication, or transfer, among closely related environmental microbes create metabolic differences akin to those generated by knock-out strains engineered in the laboratory used to establish the functions of unknown genes. Inspired by this natural

SUBMITTER: Badur AH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5546043 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature