Abstract. The enzymology of methanol utilization in thermotolerant methytotrophic Bacillus strains was investigated. In all strains an immunological]y related NAD-dependent methanol dehydrogenase was involved in the initial oxidation of methanol. In cells of Bacillus sp. C1 grown under methanol-limiting conditions this enzyme constituted a high percentage of total soluble protein. The methanol dehydrogenase from this organism was purified to homogeneity and characterized. In cell-free extracts the enzyme displayed biphasic kinetics towards methanol, with apparent Km values of 3.8 and 166 mM. Carbon assimilation was by way of the fructose-1,6-bisphosphate aldolase cleavage and transketolase/transaldolase rearrangement variant of the RuMP cycle of formaldehyde fixation. The key enzymes of the RuMP cycle, hexulose-6-phosphate synthase (HPS) and hexulose-6-phosphate isomerase (HPI), were present at very high levels of activity. Failure of whole cells to oxidize formate, and the absence of formaldehyde-and formate dehydrogenases indicated the operation of a non-linear oxidation sequence for formaldehyde via HPS. A comparison of the levels of methanol dehydrogenase and HPS in cells of Bacillus sp. C1 grown on methanol and glucose suggested that the synthesis of these enzymes is not under coordinate control.

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The inability of Hyphomicrobium X to grow on compounds such as pyruvate and succinate is most likely due to the absence of a functional pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDH) complex. Further support for this was sought by studying the effect of the introduction of the Escherichia coli pdh genes in Hyphomicrobium X on the pattern of substrate utilization by the latter organism. These genes were cloned by in vivo techniques using the broad-host range conjugative plasmid RP4::Mucts. Plasmid RP4 derivatives containing pdh genes were selected by their ability to complement a pyruvate dehydrogenase deletion mutant of E. coli, strain JRG746 recA (ace-1pd) delta 18. The plasmids thus obtained could be transferred through an intermediary host (C600 recA), selecting only for an antibiotic resistance coded for by RP4 and back into JRG746 or other E. coli pdh mutants, upon which they still conferred the wild type phenotype. Enzyme assays showed that the latter strains, when carrying plasmid RP4'pdh1 also possessed PDH complex activity. Conjugation between the auxotrophic E. coli JRG746 (RP4'pdh1) strain and Hyphomicrobium X on pyruvate minimal agar gave rise to progeny which, on the basis of its morphology (stalked bacteria), their ability to grow on C1-compounds and to denitrify (now also with pyruvate) were identified as hyphomicrobia. This Hyphomicrobium X transconjugant was also able to grow in minimal medium with succinate, but no other novel growth substrates have been identified so far.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

, W. (1985). Methanol as a fermentation substrate for the production of phenylalanine, tyrosine and tryptophan by the facultative methylotroph Nocardia sp. 239.