RESEARCH

Methanosarcina Acetivorans is an important organism in the Archaea domain, which is able to utilize acetate, methanol and carbon monoxide as the energy sources. The biochemical pathway of methanol and acetate metabolism has been extensively studied; however, the CO pathway is still under research. My research involves studying how M .acetivorans metabolizes CO by proteomic and genetic approach.

Two dimensional electrophoresis coupled with mass spectrometry analysis is used to study the proteomics of CO metabolizing M. acetivorans. Comparing with M. acetivorans growing on acetate, 67 proteins are found to be up-regulated in CO metabolizing M. acetivorans.(fig. 1) The identification of these proteins involves mass spectrometry analysis of the excised spots from 2-D gels.

Fig. 1 Two Dimensional Electrophoresis of CO grown M. acetivorans

Further research involves elucidating the enzymes involved in CO metabolism in M. acetivorans by identifying the spots on 2-D gel obtained, RT-PCR to confirm the expression of the potential proteins of interest and enzymology studies on the enzymes in the CO pathway.