Growth of Hyperthermophilic Archaeon Pyrococcus furiosus on Chitin Involves Two Family 18 Chitinases

Pyrococcus furiosus was found to grow on chitin, adding this polysacharide to the inventory of carbohydrates utilized by this hyperthermophilic archaeon. Accordingly, two open reading frames ( chiA [Pf1234] and chiB [Pf1233]) were identified in the genome of P. furiosus , which encodes chitinases with sequence similarity to proteins from the glycosyl hydrolase family 18 in less-thermophilic organisms. Both enzymes contain multiple domains that...