Diversity of thiosulfate-oxidizing bacteria from marine sediments and hydrothermal vents.
Species diversity, phylogenetic affiliations, and environmental occurrence patterns of thiosulfate-oxidizing marine bacteria were investigated by using new isolates from serially diluted continental slope and deep-sea abyssal plain sediments collected off the coast of New England and strains cultured previously from Galapagos hydrothermal vent samples. The most frequently obtained new isolates, mostly from 10(3)- and 10(4)-fold dilutions of the continental slope sediment, oxidized thiosulfate to sulfate and fell into a distinct phylogenetic cluster of marine alpha-Proteobacteria. Phylogenetically and physiologically, these sediment strains resembled the sulfate-producing thiosulfate oxidizers from the Galapagos hydrothermal vents while showing habitat-related differences in growth temperature, rate and extent of thiosulfate utilization, and carbon substrate patterns. The abyssal deep-sea sediments yielded predominantly base-producing thiosulfate-oxidizing isolates related to Antarctic marine Psychroflexus species and other cold-water marine strains of the Cytophaga-Flavobacterium-Bacteroides phylum, in addition to gamma-proteobacterial isolates of the genera Pseudoalteromonas and Halomonas-Deleya. Bacterial thiosulfate oxidation is found in a wide phylogenetic spectrum of Flavobacteria and Proteobacteria.
Biology Department, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Massachusetts 02543, USA. ateske@whoi.edu
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A
Teske
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Brinkhoff
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Muyzer
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Moser
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Rethmeier
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Jannasch
D004275:DNA, Ribosomal / Q000032:analysis / Q000235:genetics; D004591:Electrophoresis, Polyacrylamide Gel / Q000379:methods; D014644:Genetic Variation; D019015:Geologic Sediments / Q000382:microbiology*; D006090:Gram-Negative Bacteria / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics* / Q000302:isolation & purification / Q000378:metabolism; D006863:Hydrogen-Ion Concentration; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010084:Oxidation-Reduction; D010641:Phenotype; D010802:Phylogeny; D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S / Q000235:genetics; D012623:Seawater / Q000382:microbiology*; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D013885:Thiosulfates / Q000378:metabolism*
D004275:DNA, Ribosomal; D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S; D013885:Thiosulfates