Gary Sawers

TL;DR: The aim of this article is to review the events leading to the elucidation of selenocysteine as being the 21st amino acid.

TL;DR: The assembly of the iron-sulphur framework of the active site of iron-only hydrogenase (the H-cluster) is reported, and it is shown that it functions as an electrocatalyst for proton reduction.

TL;DR: The identification of the structural genes encoding the formate dehydrogenase and hydrogenase isoenzymes has enabled a detailed dissection of how their expression is coordinated to the metabolic requirement for their products, and a picture is emerging of the extremely complex and involved path of events leading to the regulated synthesis, processing and assembly of catalytically active formate dehydrationases and hydrogenases.

TL;DR: Anaerobically growing Escherichia coli cells contain the enzyme pyruvate formate-lyase which catalyses the non-oxidative cleavage of pyruVate to acetyl-CoA and formate, and the transcription factor Fnr has been identified as being responsible for part of the anaerobic control of pfl expression.

TL;DR: The ttrRSBCA gene cluster confers on Escherichia coli the ability to respire with tetrathionate as electron acceptor and makes up a previously unrecognized class of molybdopterin‐dependent enzymes that carry out the reductive cleavage of sulphur–sulphur bonds.