Methanogenic anaerobic archaea produce the largest amount of methane on Earth. Methane metabolism was thought to originate early in the evolution of the phylum Euryarchaeota, a notion that was challenged following the discovery of putative methane metabolism in the archaeal phylum Bathyarchaeota. Vanwonterghem et al. now report five near-complete genomes from population genomes that were recovered from anoxic environments with high methane flux. These genomes encode methyl-coenzyme M reductase genes that are divergent from known sequences, and the authors suggest that these archaea belong to a new phylum, which they term Verstraetearchaeota. Metabolic reconstruction revealed the presence of key genes that are associated with methylotrophic methanogenesis and fermentation processes.
References
Vanwonterghem, I. et al. Methylotrophic methanogenesis discovered in the archaeal phylum Verstraetearchaeota. Nat. Microbiol. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/NMICROBIOL.2016.170 (2016)
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Du Toit, A. Divergent methanogenic archaea. Nat Rev Microbiol 14, 667 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrmicro.2016.156
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrmicro.2016.156