Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology

About: Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology is a facility organization based out in Hyderabad, India. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Gene. The organization has 2439 authors who have published 3193 publications receiving 97833 citations.

Deinococcus indicus sp. nov., an arsenic-resistant bacterium from an aquifer in West Bengal, India

Abstract: An arsenic- and radiation-resistant bacterium, strain Wt/1aT, was isolated from water from an arsenic-contaminated aquifer located in the Chakdah district of West Bengal, India. The bacterium stains Gram-negative and is rod-shaped, non-motile, non-sporulating and red-pigmented. Cell-wall peptidoglycan contains ornithine as the diamino acid, MK-8 is the major menaquinone, C15 : 1 and C16 : 1 are the major fatty acids and the DNA G+C content of the organism is 65·8 mol%. Based on these phenotypic and chemotaxonomic characteristics, strain Wt/1aT was identified as a member of the genus Deinococcus. Strain Wt/1aT exhibited maximum 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity (95 %) with Deinococcus grandis; however, strain Wt/1aT exhibited only 14 % similarity to D. grandis IAM 13005T at the DNA–DNA level. Furthermore, strain Wt/1aT (compared to D. grandis IAM 13005T) is more resistant to arsenate and arsenite, is positive for arginine dihydrolase, utilizes a number of carbon sources and exhibits quantitative differences in fatty acid composition and qualitative differences in lipid composition. Strain Wt/1aT is identified as a novel species of the genus Deinococcus, for which the name Deinococcus indicus sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain of Deinococcus indicus is Wt/1aT (=MTCC 4913T=DSM 15307T).

Characterization of an alkaline active-thiol forming extracellular serine keratinase by the newly isolated Bacillus pumilus.

Abstract: Aims: The aim of the study was to optimize microbial degradation of keratinous waste and to characterize the alkaline active keratinase showing its biotechnological importance. Method and Results: An extracellular keratinase enzyme was purified from the culture medium of a bacterial isolate and the conditions were optimized. The molecular weight of DEAE-Sepharose-purified keratinase was determined by SDS-PAGE. Instrumental analyses were investigated to study the mechanism of bovine hair hydrolysis. Isolate was identified as Bacillus pumilus based on phenotypic characteristics and 16S rDNA sequence. The optimized condition for its growth was pH 8 and 35°C. The molecular weight of the keratinase was estimated as 65 kDa. Activity inhibition by phenyl methyl sulphonyl fluoride confirmed keratinase as serine protease type. Instrumental analysis revealed the sulphitolysis and proteolysis involved mechanism in bovine hair hydrolysis. Conclusion: This study indicates that the isolated keratinase is an alkaline active serine protease with a high degree of activity towards bovine hair. Significance and Impact of the Study: This study examines a serine protease with high keratinolytic activity and degradation mechanism for bovine hair. The keratinolytic activity of the isolated strain and its reaction mechanism on bovine hair could show biotechnological potential in the leather industry.

Membrane organization at low cholesterol concentrations: a study using 7-nitrobenz-2-oxa-1,3-diazol-4-yl-labeled cholesterol.

Abstract: Cholesterol is most often found distributed nonrandomly in the plane of the bilayer, giving rise to cholesterol-rich and -poor domains. Many of these domains are thought to be crucial for the maintenance of membrane structure and function. However, such well-characterized domains generally occur in the membranes that contain relatively large amounts of cholesterol. Cholesterol organization in membranes containing very low amounts of cholesterol has not been investigated extensively. Recent evidence from differential-scanning calorimetric studies suggest that cholesterol may not form uniform monodisperse solutions, as assumed earlier, in the membranes even at very low concentrations. Fluorescent cholesterol analogues, when chosen carefully, offer a powerful approach for studying the distribution and organization of cholesterol in membranes at low concentrations. In this paper, we have studied the organization of cholesterol in membranes at very low concentrations (up to 5 mol % of the total lipid) using a fluorescent cholesterol analogue (NBD-cholesterol) which is labeled with the 7-nitrobenz-2-oxa-1,3-diazol-4-yl (NBD) group at the flexible acyl chain, without any alteration in the structural features necessary for proper membrane incorporation. Our results show that NBD-cholesterol exhibits local organization even at very low concentrations. This is consistent with the recently suggested model of cholesterol organization in membranes at low concentrations, involving the formation of transbilayer, tail-to-tail dimers [Harris, J.S., Epps, D. E., Davio, S. R., & Kezdy, F.J. (1995) Biochemistry 34, 3851-3857]. The implications of such local cholesterol organization in membranes that have very low cholesterol content in vivo, such as the endoplasmic reticulum and the inner mitochondrial membrane, open up interesting possibilities.