Exploration of carbohydrate metabolism in hyperthermophilic archaea: novel approaches, enzymes and metabolic pathways

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Markus Kaiser; Professorin Dr. Bettina Siebers
• Subject Area: Metabolism, Biochemistry and Genetics of Microorganisms ; Biochemistry ; Biological and Biomimetic Chemistry ; Microbial Ecology and Applied Microbiology
• Term: from 2018 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 381206548

Archaea, the third domain of life, are characterized by unique biological traits such as a metabolism that shares bacterial and eukaryotic properties but also features unique pathways and enzymes. Among them, (hyper)thermophiles are particular interesting because these archaea are adapted to extreme environmental conditions (temperature, pH, etc.) that turn their enzyme repertoire into an intriguing source for the discovery of novel enzymes (accordingly often referred to as extremozymes) for biotechnological applications. A broader use of enzymes from (hyper)thermophilic archaea as well as molecular insights into their unique metabolic pathways is however currently hampered by a lack of suitable methodologies for their identification and systematic study.In this proposal, we want to establish and apply novel methodologies for overcoming these current bottlenecks. As a showcase, we will focus in our application on the glycosidase enzyme family as well as their corresponding carbohydrate degradation pathways. To this end, we will 1) establish activity-based protein profiling (ABPP) as a new approach for studying these enzymes and pathways in (hyper)thermophilic archaea, 2) apply ABPP and other methodologies such as transcriptomics, (meta)genomics and biochemical approaches to characterize these enzymes and pathways in three model strains with unusual properties in carbohydrate degradation, 3) isolate novel (hyper)thermophilic strains by in situ enrichment strategies and characterize them with our ABPP as well as the more established Polyomics and biochemical approaches and 4) define the scope of ABPP for chemical profiling of environmental community cultures. The proposed project thereby critically depends on the scientific collaboration between the Russian and German partners as both sides have complementary expertise and resources. The Russian partners are experts in isolation of novel (hyper)thermophilic strains and their characterization via (meta)genomics and transcriptomics while the German groups will complement with their biochemical as well as ABPP and proteomics expertise. We anticipate that the conjoint project will thus not only lead to novel insights in archaeal biology, biotechnology and ABPP but also provide the basis for extensive knowledge flow between both countries.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Russia
• Co-Investigator: Ilya V. Kublanov, Ph.D.