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Gold helps bacteria to oxidize methane
L A Levchenko1, A P Sadkov, N V Lariontseva
1Institute of Problems of Chemical Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences, 142432 Chernogolovka, Moscow Region, Russia.
Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry
|March 19, 2002
Abstract:
With the use of labeled methane-14C and by chromatographic analysis it was shown that gold-containing protein ("Au-protein"), isolated from goldphilic Micrococcus luteus bacteria, catalyzes the oxidation of methane to methanol in the system also containing NADH, air, K(3)Fe(CN)(6) and Tris-HCl buffer. Presumably Au-protein helps bacteria to survive when usual sources of carbon and energy are scarce.