Editor's Summary
6 December 2007
Passing the acid test
Bacteria that consume the greenhouse gas methane are potentially important players in the atmospheric budget, with the potential to sop up methane from the Earth's crust that would otherwise contribute to the atmospheric budget. Two new methane-utilizing bacteria have been isolated independently and both break new ground: unlike previous methanotrophic isolates, which are proteobacteria, they belong to the widely distributed Verrucomicrobia phylum. And both isolates display optimum growth and methane oxidation in remarkably acidic conditions, at pHs as low as 0.8 to 2.5. Acidimethylosilex fumarolicum SolV was isolated from a fuming vent on the Solfatara volcano near Naples, Italy, and Methylokorus infernorum from hot soil in the Hell's Gate (Tikitere) geothermal area of New Zealand.
Letter: Methanotrophy below pH 1 by a new Verrucomicrobia species
Arjan Pol, Klaas Heijmans, Harry R. Harhangi, Dario Tedesco, Mike S. M. Jetten & Huub J. M. Op den Camp
doi:10.1038/nature06222
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (280K) | Supplementary information
Letter: Methane oxidation by an extremely acidophilic bacterium of the phylum Verrucomicrobia
Peter F. Dunfield, Anton Yuryev, Pavel Senin, Angela V. Smirnova, Matthew B. Stott, Shaobin Hou, Binh Ly, Jimmy H. Saw, Zhemin Zhou, Yan Ren, Jianmei Wang, Bruce W. Mountain, Michelle A. Crowe, Tina M. Weatherby, Paul L. E. Bodelier, Werner Liesack, Lu Feng, Lei Wang & Maqsudul Alam
doi:10.1038/nature06411
First paragraph | Full Text | PDF (411K) | Supplementary information
