Browsing Institute for Microbial Biotechnology & Metagenomics by Title

Now showing items 28-37 of 37

    • Review and re-analysis of domain-specific 16S primers 

      Baker, Gillian; Smith, Jacques J.; Cowan, Donald A. (Elsevier, 2003)
      The Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) has facilitated the detection of unculturable microorganisms in virtually any environmental source and has thus been used extensively in the assessment of environmental microbial diversity. ...

    • The search for the ideal biocatalyst 

      Burton, Stephanie G.; Cowan, Donald A.; Woodley, John M. (Nature Publishing Group, 2002)
      While the use of enzymes as biocatalysts to assist in the industrial manufacture of fine chemicals and pharmaceuticals has enormous potential, application is frequently limited by evolution-led catalyst traits. The advent ...

    • Selection of Clostridium spp. in biological sand filters neutralizing synthetic acid mine drainage 

      Ramond, Jean-Baptiste; Welz, Pamela J.; Le Roes-Hill, Marilize; Tuffin, Marla I.; Burton, Stephanie G.; Cowan, Donald A. (Wiley, 2013)
      In this study, three biological sand filter (BSF) were contaminated with a synthetic iron- [1500 mg L-1 Fe(II), 500 mg L-1 Fe(III)] and sulphate-rich (6000 mg L-1 SO2/4-) acid mine drainage (AMD) (pH = 2), for 24 days, to ...

    • Selection of diazotrophic bacterial communities in biological sand filter mesocosms used for the treatment of phenolic-laden wastewater 

      Ramond, Jean-Baptiste; Welz, Pamela J.; Tuffin, Marla I.; Burton, Stephanie G.; Cowan, Donald A. (Springer Verlag, 2013)
      Agri effluents such as winery or olive mill waste-waters are characterized by high phenolic concentrations. These compounds are highly toxic and generally refractory to biodegradation. Biological sand filters (BSFs) represent ...

    • Sequence analysis of an Archaeal virus isolated from a hypersaline lake in Inner Mongolia, China 

      Pagaling, Eulyn; Haigh, Richard D.; Grant, William D.; Cowan, Donald A.; Jones, Brian; Ma, Yanhe; Ventosa, Antonio; Heaphy, Shaun (BioMed Central, 2007)
      Background: We are profoundly ignorant about the diversity of viruses that infect the domain Archaea. Less than 100 have been identified and described and very few of these have had their genomic sequences determined. ...

    • Sputtered Si and Mg doped hydroxyapatite for biomedical applications 

      Abdulgader, Radwan; Monsees, Thomas K. (IOP Publishing, 2018-01-30)
      Hydroxyapatite (HAP) coatings are applied on metallic implant materials to combine mechanical properties of metallic material with bioactivity abilities of HAP ceramic. In this study, HAP coatings with additions of Si ...

    • Structure and functional characterization of pyruvate decarboxylase from Gluconacetobacter diazotrophicus 

      van Zyl, Leonardo Joaquim; Schubert, Wolf-Dieter; Tuffin, Marla I.; Cowan, Donald A. (BioMed Central, 2014)
      BACKGROUND: Bacterial pyruvate decarboxylases (PDC) are rare. Their role in ethanol production and in bacterially mediated ethanologenic processes has, however, ensured a continued and growing interest. PDCs from ...

    • Structure of an aliphatic amidase from Geobacillus pallidus RAPc8 

      Kimani, Serah W.; Agarkar, Vinod B.; Cowan, Donald A.; Sayed, Muhammed F.; Sewell, B. Trevor (International Union of Crystallography, 2007)
      The amidase from Geobacillus pallidus RAPc8, a moderate thermophile, is a member of the nitrilase superfamily and catalyzes the conversion of amides to the corresponding carboxylic acids and ammonia. It shows both ...

    • The upper temperature for life – where do we draw the line? 

      Cowan, Donald A. (Elsevier, 2004)
      The newly isolated hyperthermophilic archaeal strain 121 grows slowly at 121 8C and even survives short periods at 130 8C. This is another organism that grows best at temperatures well in excess of 100 8C! We should not ...

    • Virome assembly and annotation: A surprise in the Namib Desert 

      Hesse, Uljana; Van Heusden, Peter; Kirby, Bronwyn; Olonade, Israel; van Zyl, Leonardo Joaquim; Trindade, Marla (Frontiers Research Foundation, 2017)
      Sequencing, assembly, and annotation of environmental virome samples is challenging. Methodological biases and differences in species abundance result in fragmentary read coverage; sequence reconstruction is further ...