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Research has been conducted on the membrane surface display system. The description of this system which anchors foreign proteins in the cytoplasmic membrane of Escherichia coli and Proteus mirabilis stable cell wall-less L-form cells is presented and the results indicate that the system has endotoxin-poor organisms.

The paracrystalline phycobiliprotein-linker structures of the new cyanobacterium, Synechocystis sp. strain BO8402 emit autofluorescence and mediate nitrogenase and photosynthesis processes in bacterial cells. Insufficient energy transfer between photosystems and paracrystalline phycobiliproteins causes low growth rate and high oxygen compensation point in strain. The hemidiscoidal phycobilisomers of the BO9201 stable derivative strain of BO8402 promotes high growth rate even in low light intensities.

Corrinoids are essential cofactors of reductive dehalogenases in anaerobic bacteria. Microorganisms mediating reductive dechlorination as part of their energy metabolism are either capable of de novo corrinoid biosynthesis (e.g., Desulfitobacterium spp.) or dependent on exogenous vitamin B(12) (e.g., Dehalococcoides spp.). In this study, the impact of exogenous vitamin B(12) (cyanocobalamin) and of tetrachloroethene (PCE) on the synthesis and the subcellular localization of the reductive PCE dehalogenase was investigated in the gram-positive Desulfitobacterium hafniense strain Y51, a bacterium able to synthesize corrinoids de novo. PCE-depleted cells grown for several subcultivation steps on fumarate as an alternative electron acceptor lost the tetrachloroethene-reductive dehalogenase (PceA) activity by the transposition of the pce gene cluster. In the absence of vitamin B(12), a gradual decrease of the PceA activity and protein amount was observed; after 5 subcultivation steps with 10% inoculum, more than 90% of the enzyme activity and of the PceA protein was lost. In the presence of vitamin B(12), a significant delay in the decrease of the PceA activity with an ∼90% loss after 20 subcultivation steps was observed. This corresponded to the decrease in the pceA gene level, indicating that exogenous vitamin B(12) hampered the transposition of the pce gene cluster. In the absence or presence of exogenous vitamin B(12), the intracellular corrinoid level decreased in fumarate-grown cells and the PceA precursor formed catalytically inactive, corrinoid-free multiprotein aggregates. The data indicate that exogenous vitamin B(12) is not incorporated into the PceA precursor, even though it affects the transposition of the pce gene cluster.