Characterization of plasmids among the three species of Gluconobacter
The genus Gluconobacter consists of acetic acid bacteria which have the ability to generate acidic products from their substrates, particularly acetic acid from ethanol. For this reason, the gluconobacters live in acidic, sugary environments such as flowers, honey bees, fruits, cider, vinegar, wine...
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| Format: | Others |
| Language: | en |
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Virginia Tech
2014
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10919/38384 http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-06062008-170132/ |
| Summary: | The genus Gluconobacter consists of acetic acid bacteria which have the ability
to generate acidic products from their substrates, particularly acetic acid from ethanol. For this reason, the gluconobacters live in acidic, sugary environments such as flowers, honey bees, fruits, cider, vinegar, wine and beer. The gluconobacters carry out a strictly respiratory type of metabolism using only oxygen as a terminal electron
acceptor. They do not completely oxidize a substrate to carbon dioxide. Instead, they
partially oxidize the substrate using membrane-bound dehydrogenases and excrete the product into the surrounding growth medium. It is these limited oxidations that make the gtuconobacters industrially useful.
Although much is known about the physiology of the limited oxidations in the
gluconobacters, little is known of their genetics, particularly, their plasmids. The overall
purpose of this dissertation was to determine if Gluconobacter plasmids correlate with
oxidative capability and/or antibiotic resistance.
To achieve this goal, I first needed a way to screen strains of Gluconobacter for their ability to oxidize many different substrates. 'developed an assay that used an
unusual artificial electron acceptor, tetranitroblue tetrazolium (TNBT) and then tested
the ability of six strains to oxidize 13 chemical compounds. Although most strains were
able to oxidize the 13 compounds tested, they accomplished this with varying extents
of oxidation. These differences were noted even with strains representing the same
species. === Ph. D. |
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