First part of an annual report of the Texas Railroad Commission's Oil and Gas Division providing background on the industry and the agency's activities, information related to the production of oil and gas, and data regarding production by field.

First part of an annual report of the Texas Railroad Commission's Oil and Gas Division providing background on the industry and the agency's activities, information related to the production of oil and gas, and data regarding production by field.

The project investigated fundamental aspects of carbon metabolism and genetics in the methane-producing archaeon Methanococcus maripaludis. The project yielded 23 peer-reviewed publications and five reviews from 1997-2007. PDFs of the peer-reviewed publications are included in the next section. Some papers of special interest are listed below. The pathway of pyruvate biosynthesis was elucidated by a combination of biochemical and physiological studies. This work characterized the very oxygen sensitive pyruvate oxidoreductase and showed that the enzyme was irreversible under physiological conditions. Evidence for the flow of electrons from the energy coupling hydrogenase b (Ehb) was presented. These results were published in the following papers. Yang, Y.L., J.N. Gluska, and W.B. Whitman (2002) Intracellular pyruvate flux in the methane-producing archaeon Methanococcus maripaludis. Arch. Microbiol. 178: 493-498. Lin, W.C., Y.L. Yang, and W.B. Whitman (2003) The anabolic pyruvate oxidoreductase from Methanococcus maripaludis. Arch. Microbiol. 179: 444-456. Lin, W., and W.B. Whitman (2004) The importance of porE and porF in the anabolic pyruvate oxidoreductase of Methanococcus maripaludis. Arch. Microbiol. 181: 68-73. Porat, I., W. Kim, E.L. Hendrickson, Q. Xia, Y. Zhang, T. Wang, F. Taub, B.C. Moore, I.J. Anderson, M. Hackett, J.A. Leigh, and W.B. Whitman (2006) Disruption of the Ehb hydrogenase operon limits …