Functional and comparative analysis of novel dehydrogenase genes in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Carboxydothermus hydrogenoformans</i> Z-2901

Abstract

<i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Carboxydothermus hydrogenoformans Z-</i>2901 is a carboxydotrophic hydrogenogen Gram-positive bacterium species, which utilizes carbon monoxide (CO) as a carbon source and produces hydrogen. During CO-dependent metabolism, dehydrogenase types of enzymes play a significant role in biological hydrogen production. In this organism, CO dehydrogenase (CODH) and other dehydrogenase genes are effectively involved in fixation and degradation of carbon compounds. Several hypothetical open reading frames (ORFs) coding for dehydrogenase genes have to be functionally analyzed in an attempt to understand their biochemical behaviour. In the present paper, authors elaborately describe the functional identification of novel dehydrogenase genes by studying their structural features, such as, motif, conserved signature pattern, folds and evolutionary relationships through functional and comparative studies. Findings from these analyses have strongly suggested the functions of two hypothetical proteins YP_360204 and YP_361460 as succinate dehydrogenase and FAD-dependent dehydrogenase, respectively.