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Life Sciences

University of Central Florida

HIM 1990-2015

Theses/Dissertations

Bacteria; E. coli; Enterobacteria; Evolution; Fermentation; Genetics; Glycine reductase; Metabolism; Phylogeny; Proline reductase; Stickland reactions

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The Glycine And Proline Reductase Systems: An Evolutionary Perspective And Presence In Enterobacteriaceae, Joshua Witt Dec 2013

The Glycine And Proline Reductase Systems: An Evolutionary Perspective And Presence In Enterobacteriaceae, Joshua Witt

HIM 1990-2015

The Glycine and Proline Reduction systems are two of the best characterized selenoenzymes in bacteria and have been found to occur in a wide variety of clostridia [1-5]. These enzymes are utilized to reduce glycine or D-proline to obtain energy via substrate level phosporylation or membrane gradients, respectively [6, 7]. This includes the pathogens C. difficile and C. botulinum [5, 8]. Strains of C. difficile are activate toxigenic pathways whenever either of these pathways is active within the cell [5, 8]. Though evolutionary studies have been conducted on ammonia producing bacteria [9] none has been done to directly characterize these …