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. 1980 Jul 15;190(1):177–182. doi: 10.1042/bj1900177

Methane production by the membranous fraction of Methanobacterium thermoautotrophicum.

F D Sauer, J D Erfle, S Mahadevan
PMCID: PMC1162076  PMID: 6778475

Abstract

Intact membrane vesicles are required to synthesize methane from CO2 and H2 by disrupted preparations of Methanobacterium thermoautotrophicum cells. When membrane vesicles were removed by high-speed centrifugation at 226 600 g, the remaining supernatant fraction no longer synthesized methane. Alternatively, if vesicle structure was disrupted by passage through a Ribi cell fractionator at very high pressures (345 MPa), the bacterial cell extract, with all the particulate fraction in it, did not synthesize methane. Methyl-coenzyme M, a new coenzyme first described by McBride & Wolfe [(1971) Biochemistry 10, 2317--2324], was shown to stimulate methane production from CO2 and H2, as previously reported, but the methyl group of the coenzyme did not appear to be a precursor of methane in this reaction. No methyl-coenzyme M reductase activity was detected in the cytoplasmic fraction of M. thermoautotrophicum cells.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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