Rhodobacter sphaeroides is a purple photosynthetic bacterium that can grow in a diverse set of conditions, either anaerobic or aerobic conditions. The genome for R. sphaeroides is well known, but only 30% of the encoded protein functions are known. Previous studies from this lab have identified the Rsp gene 2415 as having a 68% sequence identity with a proposed glutathionylspermidine synthase from the bacterium Methylobacillus flagellatus. The primary protein sequence has high similarity to over 100 sequences found in the NCBI database with none of those being reported as having the function validated. The purpose of this study is to characterize the unknown protein product of the gene Rsp 2415 and to confirm the identity of the protein as glutathionylspermidine synthase. Validating the function of genes greatly increases our understanding of bacterial metabolic processes in R. sphaeroides as well as the hundreds of other organisms which contain this gene.

Characterization and validation of unknown gene function from the bacterium <i>Rhodobacter sphaeroides</i>

246th National Meeting (2013)

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Characterization and validation of unknown gene function from the bacterium Rhodobacter sphaeroides