Structure of a bifunctional alcohol dehydrogenase involved in bioethanol generation in Geobacillus thermoglucosidasius

The crystal structure of the alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) domain of an ADHE protein from G. thermoglucosidasius has been determined to 2.5 Å resolution. Docking of this with a homology model of the aldehyde dehydrogenase domain, for which no structure has been determined, has enabled the construction of a model of the complete ADHE and a putative mechanism of formation of the large multimeric `spirosomes' that have been reported for ADHE from this and other organisms.