by a new strictly anaerobic bacterium

Abstract. A new strictly anaerobic, gram-negative, non-sporeforming bacterium, Strain PerGlxl, was enriched and isolated from marine sediment samples with glyoxylate as sole carbon and energy source. The guanine-plus-cytosine content of the DNA was 44.1 __+ 0.2 mol %. Glyoxylate was utilized as the only substrate and was stoichiometrically degraded to carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and glycolate. An acetyl-CoA and ADP-dependent glyoxylate converting enzyme activity, malic enzyme, and pyruvate synthase were found at activities sufficient for growth ( _ 0.25 U x mg protein- 1). These findings allow to design a new degradation pathway for glyoxylate: glyoxylate is condensed with acetyl-CoA to form malyl-CoA; the free energy of the thioester linkage in malyl-CoA is conserved by substrate level phosphorylation