Séminaires IBS : Enlightening the metabolic secrets of anaerobic microbial key players of the carbon cycle

Par Tristan Wagner (Microbial Metabolism group, Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, Bremen, Germany)

Microorganisms have been shaping the Earth’s biogeochemistry for almost four billion years. Among them, anaerobic archaea governing the carbon cycle nourish ecosystems and orchestrate the final step of organic matter degradation. These peculiar microbes, already employed as biological factories by our modern society, harbour a universe of concealed enzymatic chemistry capable of activating inert molecules such as CO₂ and N₂ to turn them into biofuels CH₄ and NH₃. To decipher the reaction mechanisms of these (metallo)enzymes, our laboratory relies on an unbiased approach by directly purifying the proteins from the anaerobic microorganism. The enzymes isolated in their native states (i.e., loaded with their appropriate (metallo)cofactor(s), partners and post-translational modifications) are characterized by a crystallography, biochemistry and biophysics suite. The gained insights into the reaction mechanisms open new avenues for biotechnological application and unravel the regulation and efficiency of the microbial metabolic network by understanding their subtle molecular adaptation.

Hôte : W. Weissenhorn (IBS)