Main description:

This book focusses on microbial physiology, biochemistry and genetics and provides the reader with detailed information on a number of microbial pathways. Insight into microbial biochemistry have allowed for the formulation of concepts that have turned out to be important in the study of higher organisms. In the first section, the principles of bacterial growth are given, as well as a description of the different layers that enclose the bacterial cytoplasm, and their role in obtaining nutrients from the outside media through different permeability mechanism, which are described in detail. A chapter is devoted to allostery, which is indispensable for the comprehension of many regulatory mechanisms described throughout the book. The second section analyses the mechanisms by which cells obtain the energy necessary for their growth; Glycolysis, the pentose phosphate pathway, the tricarboxylic and the anaplerotic cycles. Two chapters are devoted to classes of microorganisms rarely dealt with in textbooks, namely the Archaea, mainly the methanogenic bacteria, and the methylotrophs.
Eight chapters describe the principles of regulation at the transcriptional level, with the necessary knowledge of the machineries of transcription and translation. The next fifteen chapters deal with the biosynthesis of the cell building blocks, amino acids, purine and pyrimidine nucleotides and deoxynucleotides, water-soluble vitamins and coenzymes, isoprene and tetrapyrrole derivatives and vitamin B12. The two last chapters are devoted to the study of protein-DNA interactions and to the evolution of biosynthetic pathways. The considerable advances made in the last thirty years in the field by the introduction of gene cloning and sequencing and by the exponential development of physical methods such as X-ray crystallography, nuclear magnetic resonance and cryo-electron microscopy have helped in presenting microbial metabolism as a highly multidisciplinary field of study.

Contents:

1. Bacterial Growth 2. The Outer Membrane of Gram-Negative Bacteria and the Cytoplasmic Membrane 3. Peptidoglycan Synthesis and Cell Division 4. Cellular Permeability 5. Allosteric Enzymes 6. Glycolysis, Gluconeogenesis and Glycogen and Cellulose Synthesis 7. The Pentose Phosphate and Entner-Doudoroff Pathways 8. The Tricarboxylic Acid Cycle and the Glyoxylate Bypass 9. ATP-Generating Processes: Respiration and Fermentation 10. Biosynthesis of Lipids 11. Iron-Sulfur Proteins 12. The Archaea 13. Methanogens and Methylotrophs 14. Enzyme Induction in Catabolic Systems 15. Transcription: RNA Polymerase 16. Negative Regulation 17. Enzyme Repression in Anabolic Pathways 18. Positive Regulation 19. The Ribosomes, Translation, Chaperones and Chaperonins 20. The Genetic Code, the Transfer RNAs and the Aminoacyl-tRNA-Synthetases 21. Attenuation 22. Regulation by RNAs and Riboswitches 23. The Biological Fixation of Nitrogen 24. How Biosynthetic Pathways Have Been Established 25. The Aspartic Acid Family of Amino Acids: Biosynthesis 26. Regulation of the Biosynthesis of the Amino Acids of the Aspartic Acid Family in Enterobacteriaceae 27. Other Patterns of Regulation of the Synthesis of Amino Acids of the Aspartate Family 28. Biosynthesis of the Amino Acids of the Glutamic Acid Family and Its Regulation 29. Biosynthesis of Amino Acids Derived from Phosphoglyceric Acid and Pyruvic Acid 30. Selenocysteine and Selenoproteins 31. Biosynthesis of Aromatic Amino Acids and Its Regulation 32. The Biosynthesis of Histidine and Its Regulation 33. The Biosynthesis of Nucleotides 34. The Biosynthesis of Deoxyribonucleotides 35. Biosynthesis of Some Water-Soluble Vitamins and of Their Coenzyme Forms 36. Biosynthesis of Carotene, Vitamin A, Sterols, Ubiquinones and Menaquinones 37. Biosynthesis of the Tetrapyrrole Ring System 38. Biosynthesis of Cobalamins Including Vitamin B12 39. Interactions Between Proteins and< DNA 40. Evolution of Biosynthetic Pathways Index