title: Myxobacteria in high moor and fen: An astonishing diversity in a neglected extreme habitat.
abstract: Increasing antibiotic resistances of numerous pathogens mean that myxobacteria, well known producers of new antibiotics, are becoming more and more interesting. More than 100 secondary metabolites, most of them with bioactivity, were described from the order Myxococcales. Especially new myxobacterial genera and species turned out to be reliable sources for novel antibiotics and can be isolated from uncommon neglected habitats like, for example, acidic soils. Almost nothing is known about the diversity of myxobacteria in moors, except some information from cultivation studies of the 1970s. Therefore, we evaluated the myxobacterial community composition of acidic high moor and fen both with cultivation-independent 16S rRNA clone bank analysis and with cultivation. Phylogenetic analyses of clone sequences revealed a great potential of undescribed myxobacteria in high moor and fen, whereby all sequences represent unknown taxa and were detected exclusively by cultivation-independent analyses. However, many clones were assigned to sequences from other cultivation-independent studies of eubacterial diversity in acidic habitats. Cultivation revealed different strains exclusively from the genus Corallococcus. Our study shows that the neglected habitat moor is a promising source and of high interest with regard to the cultivation of prospective new bioactive secondary metabolite producing myxobacteria.
authors.affiliation: Microbial Drugs, Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research, Braunschweig, Germany.
authors.forename: Kathrin I
authors.initials: KI
authors.lastname: Mohr
authors.affiliation: Department of Supply Engineering, Ostfalia, Wolfenbüttel, Germany.
authors.forename: Tanja
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Zindler
authors.affiliation: Microbial Strain Collection, Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research, Braunschweig, Germany.
authors.forename: Joachim
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wink
authors.affiliation: Department of Supply Engineering, Ostfalia, Wolfenbüttel, Germany.
authors.forename: Elke
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Wilharm
authors.affiliation: Microbial Drugs, Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research, Braunschweig, Germany.
authors.forename: Marc
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-7284-8671
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Stadler
mesh_terms: D044822:Biodiversity; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D004269:DNA, Bacterial / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D004275:DNA, Ribosomal / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D017753:Ecosystem; D004783:Environmental Microbiology; D009231:Myxococcales / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics / Q000254:growth & development / Q000302:isolation & purification*; D010802:Phylogeny; D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S / Q000235:genetics; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA
chemical_list: D004269:DNA, Bacterial; D004275:DNA, Ribosomal; D012336:RNA, Ribosomal, 16S
keywords: 
  Myxococcales
  ; biodiversity; bioprospecting; microbial ecology; phylogeny