Thermus thermophilus that lives in a hot spring has been an appropriate organism to study the mechanisms of high temperature adaptation ever since its discovery in 1968 at Mine Onsen hot spring in Japan. The mechanisms of thermostability of proteins have been extensively studied and we now know several principles for gaining stability under the condition of high temperature including loop elimination, substitution of amino acid types, and so on. In parallel to these studies, the genome sequences of HB8 and HB27 strains were determined in 2004 followed by the determinations of the sequences of other strains. The knowledge of protein stability and the data of genome sequences are, unfortunately, not well integrated to understanding the thermostability of cell system as a whole and no clear explanations of the thermostability of biosynthetic pathways and membranes, for example, are not given so far. In order to understand thermostability of cell system as a whole, we launched ThermusQ, a website that collects data for T. thermophilus including genome sequences, genes, expression, biosynthetic pathways, and others at https://www.thermosq.net. The website currently contains the genome sequences of 22 Thermus strains and the effort to expand data is on the way. By gathering genome sequences, we identified similarity and differences within Thermus strains which may be the results of adaptation to different onsen sites.
Reference
Atsushi Hijikata, Tairo Oshima, Kei Yura, Yoshitaka Bessho (2023) ThermusQ: Toward the cell simulation platform for Thermus thermophilus. Journal of General and Applied Microbiology, https://doi.org/10.2323/jgam.2023.07.001.
Dr. Kei Yura graduated from the Department of Applied Physics at Waseda University in 1988 and from the Graduate School of Life Sciences at Nagoya University in 1993. He studied protein structure classification, prediction and biological evolution. He then started his scientific career as an assistant professor at Dr. Mitiko Go's laboratory at Nagoya University. He obtained his PhD in 1999 and moved to Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute in 2002 to study mechanisms of radiation resistant of Deinococcus radiodurans. He grew interest in Thermus thermophilus along with Deinococcus research. In 2008, he moved to Ochanomizu University for research and education of computational biology and expanded the fields of study to genome and protein evolution. In 2017, he was jointly appointed as a professor at Waseda University and started running two laboratories in different universities. His research fields now include biological adaptation to extreme environments, relationship between disease related genome variations and protein structures, evolution of bioluminescent proteins, genome sequencing of crickets, and promotion of computational biology among next generations. Website: https://www-p.sci.ocha.ac.jp/yuralab-en
