Research Interests:
Biomass degradation; structure function of glycoside hydrolases; gene regulation in C. thermocellum and G. stearothermophilus
Short Synopsis:
The natural degradation of biomass is a key step in the cycle of carbon on Earth and has a profound effect on our ability to generate a renewable liquid fuel that do not contribute net CO2 to the atmosphere. In my lab we study the cellulolytic and hemicellulolytic systems in two thermophile bacteria Clostridium thermocellum and Geobacillus stearothermophilus in addition to systems isolated from metagenomics. Gene regulation is studied by utilizing continuous cultures and molecular approaches and the catalytic mechanisms and structure-function relationships of glycoside hydrolases is investigated by the combination of molecular biochemistr, protein engineering and X-ray crystallography.
Collaboration: Abraham L. Sonenshein, Tufts University; Naomi E. Chayen, Imperial College London; Thomas Scheper, Hannover University; Dietmar Schomburg, Technische Universität Braunschweig; Gil Shoham, The Hebrew University; Ed Bayer, The Weizmann Institute; Raphael Lamed, Tel Aviv University; Oded Beja, Technion; Timor Baasov, Technion; Asher Schmidt, Technio
Smadar Shulami, Ayelet Raz-Pasteur, Orly Tabachnikov, Sarah Gilead-Gropper, Itzhak Shner, and Yuval Shoham. The L-arabinan utilization system of Geobacillus stearothermophilus J. Bacteriol. 193:2838-2850, 2011.
Onit Alalouf, Yael Balazs, Margarita Volkinshtein, Yael Grimpel, Gil Shoham, Yuval Shoham. A new family of carbohydrate esterases is represented by a GDSL/acetylxylan esterase from Geobacillus stearothermophilus. J. Biol. Chem. 286:41993-42001, 2011.
Orly Tabachnikov and Yuval Shoham. Functional Characterization of the Galactan Utilization System of Geobacillus stearothermophilus. FEBS J 280:950-964, 2013.
Yael Balazs, Elina Lisitsin, Oshrat Carmiel, Gil Shoham, Yuval Shoham, and Asher Schmidt. Identifying critical unrecognized sugar – protein interactions in GH10 xylanases from Geobacillus stearothermophilus using STD NMR. FEBS Journal 280:4652–4665, 2013.
Shifra Lansky, Onit Alalouf, Vered Solomon, Anat Alhassid, Lata Govada, Naomi Chayen, Hassan Belrhali, Yuval Shoham and Gil Shoham. A unique octameric structure of Axe2, an intracellular acetyl-xylooligosaccharide esterase from Geobacillus stearothermophilus. Acta Cryst D70:261-278, 2014.