A new study aimed at determing factors that enhance thermostability in species of the Thermus genus was described in the Evolutionary Bioinformatics paper, “Protein Thermostability in Thermus Bacteria.” The study determines the evolutionary factors that enhance protein thermostability. Author Benjamin Kumwenda explains the background and results of their study:

How did you become interested in studying factors contributing to protein thermostability in Thermus bacteria?

The interest is studying factors enhancing thermostability came in because of the isolation and sequencing of T. scotoductus SA-01 we wanted to identify thermostable enzymes. This project was continuation of the sequencing project in which we wanted to more the organisms in terms of horizontal gene transfer, genome rearrangements, metabolic networks and thermostability of its proteins using comparative genomic approaches. However, there were conflicting results on thermostability from prior research finding which prompted to identify possible unique factors applicable in the strain.

What was previously known about protein thermostability?  How has your work in this area advanced understanding of it?

There several factors that were implicated in enhancing thermostability. Most prior studies focused on differences between thermophiles and mesophiles and factors that were found were based on such comparison. This work compared differences within the same species of thermophiles and identified factors that brought in changes within them. This work has managed to identify factors unique to protein thermostability for Thermus species.

What do regard as being the most important aspect of the results of your research?

We identified dominant substitutions in Thermus species which we have implicated in enhancing protein thermostability. By modelling protein structures, we confirmed an overall increase in energy change for all dominant substitutions.

What was the greatest difficulty you encountered in studying protein thermostability in Thermus bacteria?

The first challenge was that there are limited completely sequenced genomes for Thermus species. Secondly, the analysis largely depended on the measure of thermostability used. Limitations of thermostability measure would have greater influence on the results. However, there are limited in silico measures of thermostability that can be explored for this purpose.

For more information on Dr Kumwenda’s Bioinformatics and Computation Biology Unit at the Univeristy of Pretoria please visit their website. Download, comment on, and share Dr Kumwenda’s article, Analysis of Protein Thermostability Enhancing Factors in Industrially Important Thermus Bacteria Species at our website.

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