Kian Mau Goh

• PhD, Associate Prof.
• Professor (Associate) at University of Technology Malaysia

Hot springs, with their well-characterized major abiotic variables and island-like habitats, are ideal systems for studying microbial biogeography. Photosynthetic biofilms are a major biological feature of hot springs but despite this large-scale studies are scarce, leaving critical questions about the drivers of spatial turnover unanswered. Here,...

Sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB) exhibit versatile metabolic adaptability with significant flexibility influenced by pH fluctuations, which play a critical role in biogeochemical cycles. In this study, we used a model SRB, Oleidesulfovibrio alaskensis G20, to determine the temporal effects of pH variations (pH 6, 7, and 8) on both growth dynamics an...

Tropical peatlands significantly influence local and global carbon and nitrogen cycles, yet they face growing pressure from anthropogenic activities. Land use changes, such as peatland forests conversion to oil palm plantations, affect the soil microbiome and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. However, the temporal dynamics of microbial community chan...

Copper is known to have toxic effects on bacterial growth. This study aimed to determine the influence of copper ions on Oleidesulfovibrio alaskensis G20 biofilm formation in a lactate-C medium supplemented with variable copper ion concentrations. OA G20, when grown in media supplemented with high copper ion concentrations of 5, 15, and 30 µM, exhi...

This data report presents prokaryotic metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) from a hot spring stream with temperatures between 64 and 100°C. The stream water was filtered and the extracted total DNA was sequenced using the Illumina HiSeq 2500 platform. Approximately 80 Gb of raw data were generated, which were subsequently assembled using MEGAHIT v1....

Amylase plays a crucial role in the industrial degradation of starch. The genus Jeotgalibacillus of the underexplored marine bacteria family Caryophanaceae has not been investigated in terms of α-amylase production. Herein, we report the comprehensive analysis of an α-amylase (AmyJM) from Jeotgalibacillus malaysiensis D5T (= DSM28777T = KCTC33550T)...

Vibrio sp. PBL-C16 is a bacterium that was isolated from Batu Laut Beach in Selangor, Malaysia. Here, we present a high-quality annotated draft genome of strain PBL-C16 and suggest its potential glycoside hydrolase enzymes for polysaccharide degradation.

Background Hot spring biofilms provide a window into the survival strategies of microbial communities in extreme environments and offer potential for biotechnological applications. This study focused on green and brown biofilms thriving on submerged plant litter within the Sungai Klah hot spring in Malaysia, characterised by temperatures of 58–74 °...

Oil palm processing generates substantial waste materials rich in organic content, posing various environmental challenges. Anaerobic digestion (AD), particularly for palm oil mill effluent (POME), offers a sustainable solution, by converting waste into valuable biomethane for thermal energy or electricity generation. The synergistic activities of...

Over the past decade, copper (Cu) has been recognized as a crucial metal in the differential expression of soluble (sMMO) and particulate (pMMO) forms of methane monooxygenase (MMO) through a mechanism referred to as the "Cu switch". In this study, we used Methylosinus trichosporium OB3b as a model bacterium to investigate the range of Cu concentra...

Hot springs are tractable model systems in microbial ecology for investigating the interactions of photosynthetic microbial biofilms. This is because they occur across broad geographic scales, possess readily identified major abiotic variables, and are subject to minimal influence from metazoans. Despite this regional scale investigations are lacki...

Hot springs, with their well-characterized major abiotic variables and island-like habitats, are ideal systems for studying microbial biogeography. Photosynthetic biofilms are a major biological feature of hot springs but despite this large-scale studies are scarce, leaving critical questions about the drivers of spatial turnover unanswered. Here,...

Life on Earth has displayed remarkable adaptability to the harshest environments, spanning polar regions, scorching deserts, abyssal oceans, lightless caves, noxious lakes, boiling hot springs, and nuclear waste sites. These resilient organisms, known as extremophiles or polyextremophiles, owe their survival due to their unique genetic adaptations....

The glycoside hydrolase family 39 (GH39) proteins are renowned for their extremophilic and multifunctional enzymatic properties, yet the molecular mechanisms underpinning these unique characteristics continue to be an active subject of research. In this study, we introduce WsuXyn, a GH39 protein with a molecular weight of 58 kDa, originating from t...

Methanotrophs, relying on methane as their primary carbon source, are renowned for their exceptional capacity to generate a diverse range of methane-based bioproducts, making the unraveling of associated metabolic pathways a vital endeavor. This study focuses on Methylosinus trichosporium OB3b to investigate genes associated with biomanufacturing o...

Chapter 5 discusses A-to-Z on publications, with special emphasis on journal publications. Throughout the chapter, we discuss the reasons for publishing and how key performance indicators (KPIs) may lead us to have a distorted view of the process. Further, this chapter discusses Scopus and Web of Science, their content, and why indexation is necess...

The title for Chap. 8 is ‘Success Can Be Learned’. Do you believe that you can be successful? Are more successful people different from others? This is one of the most significant and interesting chapters in the book and should not be skipped. In order to provide readers with valuable insights, I reached out to several experts who generously shared...

As part of the postgraduate program, defending a proposal is one of the most significant milestones, and defending a thesis is another. For academicians, postdoctoral fellows, and scientists, writing a grant proposal and publishing an article represent the beginning and closing of a typical research endeavour. Is there anything else we need to cons...

Chapter 1 demonstrates the differences between science and philosophy, as well as why researchers should have a philosophical mindset. In addition, we will discuss what a PhD is all about and the reasons for enrolling in a doctoral program. Additionally, we discussed the differences between fixed-mindset and growth-mindset as well as the difference...

The journal Nature is one of the most influential journals. The journal is divided into several sections, including Research Articles (where most prominent scientists dream of publishing one in this section), News, Opinion, Research Analysis, Careers, Book & Culture, Podcasts, Videos, etc. On most weekdays, Nature Briefing will send us an e-mail re...

Many non-native speakers learn English in primary and secondary schools, and even a few credit hours at university. Although understanding what one reads is not a major challenge, writing clearly or presenting a scientific talk (or a proposal presentation) is a major hurdle. Many non-native English writers feel more comfortable submitting their man...

Chapter 3 addresses integrity and ethics issues in an attempt to create awareness before the readers fall into the trap and damage their reputations. Among the topics covered are plagiarism, self-citation, falsifying data, exaggerating findings, authorship in publications, the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT), Committee on Publication Ethics (CO...

Chapter 2 discusses the guidelines for writing a proposal, dissertation, or thesis and how to construct a good problem statement. Additionally, the chapter provides more than ten practical considerations for conducting a comprehensive and in-depth literature review. Good practices are also discussed, as well as common errors that students make. Whi...

Soil nutrients and microbiota are known as essential components for healthy plant growth and crop productivity. However, limited studies have been conducted on the importance of soil microbiota in the early growth of oil palm seedlings (Elaeis guineensis Jacq.) under the influence of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium (NPK) compound fertilizer (nit...

Sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB) are anaerobic bacteria that form biofilm and induce corrosion on various material surfaces. The quorum sensing (QS) system that employs acyl homoserine lactone (AHL)-type QS molecules primarily govern biofilm formation. Studies on SRB have reported the presence of AHL, but no AHL synthase have been annotated in SRB s...

A significant amount of literature is available on biocorrosion, which makes manual extraction of crucial information such as genes and proteins a laborious task. Despite the fast growth of biology related corrosion studies, there is a limited number of gene collections relating to the corrosion process (biocorrosion). Text mining offers a potentia...

Robertkochia solimangrovi is a proposed marine bacterium isolated from mangrove soil. So far, the study of this bacterium is limited to taxonomy only. In this report, we performed a genomic analysis of R. solimangrovi that revealed its lignocellulose degrading ability. Genome mining of R. solimangrovi revealed a total of 87 lignocellulose degrading...

Thermovorax subterraneus 70BT is a thermophile found in a geothermically active underground mine. The strain 70BT belongs to the class of Clostridia, order of Thermosediminibacterales, and family of Thermosediminibacteraceae. Strain 70BT was the only type strain since the genus was discovered >10 years ago. Strain 70BT was compared to strains from...

Microaerobacter geothermalis Nad S1 T is a rare Bacillaceae thermophile that grows optimally at 55°C and circumneutral pH. Although strain Nad S1 T was discovered >10 years ago, its genome is yet to be described. The release of the Nad S1 T genome sequence serves as reference genetic information for subsequent use.

There are many types of thermophilic prokaryotes, eukaryotes, and viruses that reside in heated environments such as hot springs and oil reservoirs. Comparative genomics and transcriptomics approaches, 16S rRNA marker sequencing (metataxonomy), shotgun metagenomes, and genomics help us gain a better understanding of thermophiles. An e-book with one...

The Antarctic continent is not exempted from anthropogenic contamination. Diesel spills on Antarctic soils occur frequently. There, extreme climate conditions and the scarce infrastructure, cause that few remediation strategies become feasible. Bioremediation has proven to be an effective approach for hydrocarbon-contaminated soils in Antarctica, a...

The SKY hot spring is a unique site filled with a thick layer of plant litter. With the advancement of next-generation sequencing, it is now possible to mine many new biocatalyst sequences. In this study, we aimed to (i) identify the metataxonomic of prokaryotes and eukaryotes in microbial mats using 16S and 18S rRNA markers, (ii) and explore carbo...

A halophilic marine bacterial strain, PS-C1, was isolated from Sekinchan beach in Selangor, Malaysia. The 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis indicated that strain PS-C1 was associated with the genus Celeribacter. To date, there have been no reports on enzymes from the genus Celeribacter. The present study reports on the cellular features of Celeribact...

Starch and pullulan degrading enzymes are essential industrial biocatalysts. Pullulan-degrading enzymes are grouped into pullulanases (types I and type II) and pullulan hydrolase (types I, II and III). Generally, these enzymes hydrolyse the α-1,6 glucosidic bonds (and α-1,4 for certain enzyme groups) of substrates and form reducing sugars such as g...

Cellulomonas sp. strain PS-H5 was isolated from Sekinchan Beach in Selangor, Malaysia, using an ex situ cultivation method. The present work reports a high-quality draft annotated genome sequence of this strain and suggests its potential glycoside hydrolase enzymes for cellulose, hemicellulose, and starch degradations.

Roseovarius sp. strain PS-C2 is a bacterium that was isolated from Sekinchan Beach in Selangor, Malaysia, using an ex situ cultivation technique. Here, we present a high-quality annotated draft genome of strain PS-C2 and suggest potential applications of this bacterium.

The wide use of whole-genome sequencing approach in the modern genomic era has opened a great opportunity to reveal the prospective applications of halophilic bacteria. Robertkochia marina CC-AMO-30DT is one of the halophilic bacteria that was previously taxonomically identified without any inspection on its biotechnological potential from a genomi...

Firmicutes is almost a ubiquitous phylum. Several genera of this group, for instance, Geobacillus, are recognized for decomposing plant organic matter and for producing thermostable ligninolytic enzymes. Amplicon sequencing was used in this study to determine the prevalence and genetic diversity of the Firmicutes in two distinctly related environme...

The majority of the members in order Rhodothermales are underexplored prokaryotic extremophiles. Roseithermus, a new genus within Rhodothermales, was first described in 2019. Roseithermus sacchariphilus is the only species in this genus. The current report aims to evaluate the transcriptomic responses of R. sacchariphilus strain RA when cultivated...

The global burden of cancer is on the rise, and as a result, the number of therapeutics administered for chemotherapy is increasing. The occupational exposure, recalcitrant nature and ecotoxicological toxicity of these therapeutics, referred to as antineoplastic (ANP) drugs, have raised concerns about their safe remediation. This review provides an...

The study of microbial communities from extreme environments is a fascinating topic. With every study, biologists and ecologists reveal interesting facts and questions that dispel the old belief that these are inhospitable environments. In this work, we assess the microbial diversity of three hot springs from Neuquén, Argentina, using high-throughp...

To date, there is sparse information for the genus Robertkochia with Robertkochia marina CC-AMO-30DT as the only described member. We report here a new species isolated from mangrove soil collected at Malaysia Tanjung Piai National Park and perform polyphasic characterization to determine its taxonomic position. Strain CL23T is a Gram-negative, yel...

The genus Meridianimaribacter is one of the least-studied genera within Cytophaga-Flavobacteria. To date, no genomic analysis of Meridianimaribacter has been reported. In this study, Meridianimaribacter sp. strain CL38, a lignocellulose degrading halophile was isolated from mangrove soil. The genome of strain CL38 was sequenced and analyzed. The as...

Longimonas halophila and Longibacter salinarum are type strains of underexplored genera affiliated with Salisaetaceae . Herein, we report the draft genome sequences of two strains of these bacteria, L. halophila KCTC 42399 and L. salinarum KCTC 52045, with the intent of broadening knowledge of this family. Genome annotation and gene mining revealed...

Mangrove forests inhabit over 15,200,000 ha of coastal area that cover only less than 1% of world’s coastal zone. These unique forests are mostly found in South and South East Asia. In general, mangrove forests are unique ecosystem that are highly resisting to environmental changes. This area is the habitat for unique terrestrial and marine flora,...

Thousands of prokaryotic genera have been published, but methodological bias in the study of prokaryotes is noted. Prokaryotes that are relatively easy to isolate have been well-studied from multiple aspects. Massive quantities of experimental findings and knowledge generated from the well-known prokaryotic strains are inundating scientific publica...

Together these results show that hot spring environments harbor many mcr-containing organisms from outside of the Euryarchaeota and further expand the diversity of Mcr meditated methane or alkane metabolism processes. The predicted wide range of metabolic mechanisms suggests that these organisms may utilize diverse and as yet unidentified substrate...

Estructura de comunidades bacterianas autóctonas en suelos de la Base Carlini, Antártida: impacto de un derrame accidental de gasoil

Xylanases (EC 3.2.1.8) are essential enzymes due to their applications in various industries such as textile, animal feed, paper and pulp, and biofuel industries. Halo-thermophilic Rhodothermaceae bacterium RA was previously isolated from a hot spring in Malaysia. Genomic analysis revealed that this bacterium is likely to be a new genus of the fami...

A halo-thermophilic bacterium, Roseithermus sacchariphilus strain RA (previously known as Rhodothermaceae bacterium RA), was isolated from a hot spring in Langkawi, Malaysia. A complete genome analysis showed that the bacterium harbors 57 glycoside hydrolases (GHs), including a multi-domain xylanase (XynRA2). The full-length XynRA2 of 813 amino aci...

Geobacillus sp. WSUCF1 is a Gram-positive, spore-forming, aerobic and thermophilic bacterium, isolated from a soil sample obtained from a compost facility. Strain WSUCF1 demonstrated EPS producing capability using different sugars as the carbon source. The whole-genome analysis of WSUCF1 was performed to disclose the essential genes correlated with...

A bacterial strain designated as P08T was isolated from laboratory tap water during a water quality assessment in University of Malaya, Malaysia. The strain was a Gram‐negative, rod‐shaped, nonmotile, and aerobic bacterium. Complete genome of P08T comprised of a 2,820,660 bp chromosome with a G + C content of 36.43%. Both 16S rRNA phylogeny and phy...

Rhodothermaceae bacterium RA is a halo-thermophile isolated from a saline hot spring. Previously, the genome of this bacterium was sequenced using a HiSeq 2500 platform culminating in 91 contigs. In this report, we report on the resequencing of its complete genome using a PacBio RSII platform. The genome has a GC content of 68.3%, is 4,653,222 bp i...

Strain Corallo1T was isolated from mucus of red coral (Corallium rubrum) at Punta Pizzaco (Procida island, Naples, Italy). It was characterised as a Gram-stain negative, motile, rod-shaped bacterium. Strain Corallo1T was found to show positive responses for cytochrome-c oxidase, catalase, reduction of nitrate and nitrite, β-galactosidase activity a...

Beta-glucosidase (BGL) is an important industrial enzyme for food, waste and biofuel processing. Jeotgalibacillus is an understudied halophilic genus, and no beta-glucosidase from this genus has been reported. A novel beta-glucosidase gene (1344 bp) from J. malaysiensis DSM 28777T was cloned and expressed in E. coli. The recombinant protein, referr...

The recent discovery of key methane-metabolizing genes in the genomes from the archaeal phyla Bathyarchaeota and Verstraetearchaeota has expanded our understanding of the distribution of methane metabolism outside of the phylum Euryarchaeota. Here, we recovered two near-complete crenarchaeotal metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) from circumneutral...

The ability of thermophilic microorganisms and their enzymes to decompose biomass have attracted attention due to their quick reaction time, thermostability, and decreased risk of contamination. Exploitation of efficient thermostable glycoside hydrolases (GHs) could accelerate the industrialization of biofuels and biochemicals. However, the full sp...

To date, the genus Roseivirga consists of six species with one subspecies and is one of the least-studied genera among the family Flammeovirgaceae. In order to further explore this genus, the genome sequences of five Roseivirga spp. were compared and described in this study. The Roseivirga genomes have similar sizes in the range of 4.08-4.47Mb with...

Thermostable cellulase plays an important role in the process of converting lignocellulosic waste to biofuel. A culture-dependent approach may not effectively discover new thermostable cellulase, hemicellulase, or lignin-acting enzymes, since many thermophiles are not culturable in general laboratory setups. Due to this limitation, culture-independ...

Protein engineering is a very useful tool for probing structure–function relationships in proteins. Specifically, site-directed mutagenized proteins can provide useful insights into structural, binding and catalytic mechanisms of a protein, particularly when coupled with crystallization. In this chapter, we describe two protocols for performing sit...

Malaysia has a great number of hot springs, especially along the flank of the Banjaran Titiwangsa mountain range. Biological studies of the Malaysian hot springs are rare because of the lack of comprehensive information on their microbial communities. In this study, we report a cultivation-independent census to describe microbial communities in six...

Vitellibacter aquimaris D-24T (=KCTC 42708T = DSM 101732T), a halophilic marine bacterium, was isolated from seawater collected from Desaru beach, Malaysia. Here, we present the draft genome sequence of D-24T with a genome size of approximately 3.1 Mbp and G + C content of 39.93%. The genome of D-24T contains genes involved in reducing a potent gre...

Type I pullulanase from Anoxybacillus sp. SK3-4 (PulASK) is an unusual debranching enzyme that specifically hydrolyzes starch α-1,6 linkages at long branches producing oligosaccharides (≥G8), but is nonreactive against short branches; thus, incapable of producing reducing sugars (G1–G7). We report on the effects of both single and co-immobilization...

The genus Roseivirga currently includes five species: Roseivirga ehrenbergii, R. echinicomitans, R. spongicola, R. marina and R. maritima. Marinicola seohaensis SW-152T was renamed as Roseivirga seohaensis SW-152T and then reclassified again as a later heterotypic synonym of R. ehrenbergii KMM 6017T. In this study, based on average nucleotide ident...

Anoxybacillus sp. SK 3-4 is a Gram-positive, rod-shaped bacterium and a member of family Bacillaceae. We had previously reported that the strain is an aluminum resistant thermophilic bacterium. This is the first report to provide a detailed analysis of the global transcriptional response of Anoxybacillus when the cells were exposed to 600 mg L(-1)...

Jeotgalibacillus malaysiensis, a moderate halophilic bacterium isolated from a pelagic area, can endure higher concentrations of sodium chloride (NaCl) than other Jeotgalibacillus type strains. In this study, we therefore chose to sequence and assemble the entire J. malaysiensis genome. This is the first report to provide a detailed analysis of the...

α-Amylase from Anoxybacillus sp. SK3-4 (ASKA) is a thermostable enzyme that produces a high level of maltose from starches. A truncated ASKA (TASKA) variant with improved expression and purification efficiency was characterized in an earlier study. In this work, TASKA was purified and immobilized through covalent attachment on three epoxide (ReliZy...

Background In general, biofuel production involves biomass pretreatment and enzymatic saccharification, followed by the subsequent sugar conversion to biofuel via fermentation. The crucial step in the production of biofuel from biomass is the enzymatic saccharification. Many of the commercial cellulase enzyme cocktails, such as Spezyme® CP (Genenco...

Desulfotomaculum copahuensis strain CINDEFI1 is a novel spore-forming sulfate-reducing bacterium isolated from the Copahue volcano area, Argentina. Here, we present its draft genome in which we found genes related with the anaerobic respiration of sulfur compounds similar to those present in the Copahue environment.

A bacterial strain, designated RA, was isolated from water sample of a hot spring on Langkawi Island of Malaysia using marine agar. Strain RA is an aerophilic and thermophilic microorganism that grows optimally at 50–60°C and is capable of growing in marine broth containing 1–10% (w/v) NaCl. 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis demonstrated that this st...

Type I pullulanases are enzymes that specifically hydrolyse α-1,6 linkages in polysaccharides. This study reports the analyses of a novel type I pullulanase (PulASK) from Anoxybacillus sp. SK3-4. Purified PulASK (molecular mass of 80 kDa) was stable at pH 5.0-6.0 and was most active at pH 6.0. The optimum temperature for PulASK was 60 °C, and the e...

A Gram negative, aerobic, yellow-orange pigmented, rod-shaped bacterium designated as D-24T was isolated from seawater from sandy shoreline in Johor, Malaysia. The 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis revealed that the strain D-24T is affiliated with the genus Vitellibacter. It shared more than 96 % of sequence similarity with the types of some of the v...

A new subfamily of glycosyl hydrolase family GH13 was recently proposed for α-amylases from Anoxybacillus species (ASKA and ADTA), Geobacillus thermoleovorans (GTA, Pizzo, and GtamyII), Bacillus aquimaris (BaqA), and 95 other putative protein homologues. To understand this new GH13 subfamily, we report crystal structures of truncated ASKA (TASKA)....

Maltose-binding protein (MBP) is a periplasmic binding protein found in Gram negative bacteria. MBP is involved in maltose transport and bacterial chemotaxis; it binds to maltose and maltodextrins comprising α(1-4)-glucosidically linked linear glucose polymers and α(1-4)-glucosidically linked cyclodextrins. Upon ligand binding, MBP changes its conf...

Marine environment remained as largely unexplored source for researchers to discover marine microorganisms with novel properties. This study aims to isolate marine bacteria from the seashore of Desaru, Malaysia. Totally, six bacterial strains were successfully obtained and were identified by complete 16S rRNA sequencing. The characterizations of ba...

Jeotgalibacillus alimentarius JY-13T (=KCCM 80002T = JCM 10872T) is a moderate halophile. In 2001, this was the first strain of the newly proposed Jeotgalibacillus genus. The draft genome of J. alimentarius was found to consist of 32 contigs (N50, 315,125 bp) with a total size of 3,364,745 bp. This genome information will be helpful for studies on...

Species of Anoxybacillus are thermophiles and, therefore, their enzymes are suitable for many biotechnological applications. Anoxybacillus ayderensis AB04T (= NCIMB 13972T = NCCB 100050T) was isolated from the Ayder hot spring in Rize, Turkey, and is one of the earliest described Anoxybacillus type strains. The present work reports the cellular fea...

Anoxybacillus gonensis type strain G2T (= NCIMB 13,933(T) = NCCB 100,040(T)) has been isolated from the Gönen hot springs in Turkey. This strain produces a number of well-studied, biotechnologically important enzymes, including xylose isomerase, carboxylesterase, and fructose-1,6-bisphosphate aldolase. In addition, this strain is an excellent candi...

Jeotgalibacillus soli, a bacterium capable of degrading N-acyl homoserine lactone, was isolated from a soil sample in Portugal. J. soli constitutes the only Jeotgalibacillus species isolated from a non-marine source. Here, the draft genome, several interesting glycosyl hydrolases, and its putative N-acyl homoserine lactonases are presented.