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PMID: 18250313 Published · ppublish English Journal Article Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

A moderately thermophilic ammonia-oxidizing crenarchaeote from a hot spring.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America ·Vol. 105 ·No. 6 ·2008-02-12 ·Pages 2134-9

Hatzenpichler R, Lebedeva EV, Spieck E, Stoecker K, Richter A, Daims H, Wagner M

Abstract

The recent discovery of ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA) dramatically changed our perception of the diversity and evolutionary history of microbes involved in nitrification. In this study, a moderately thermophilic (46 degrees C) ammonia-oxidizing enrichment culture, which had been seeded with biomass from a hot spring, was screened for ammonia oxidizers. Although gene sequences for crenarchaeotal 16S rRNA and two subunits of the ammonia monooxygenase (amoA and amoB) were detected via PCR, no hints for known ammonia-oxidizing bacteria were obtained. Comparative sequence analyses of these gene fragments demonstrated the presence of a single operational taxonomic unit and thus enabled the assignment of the amoA and amoB sequences to the respective 16S rRNA phylotype, which belongs to the widely distributed group I.1b (soil group) of the Crenarchaeota. Catalyzed reporter deposition (CARD)-FISH combined with microautoradiography (MAR) demonstrated metabolic activity of this archaeon in the presence of ammonium. This finding was corroborated by the detection of amoA gene transcripts in the enrichment. CARD-FISH/MAR showed that the moderately thermophilic AOA is highly active at 0.14 and 0.79 mM ammonium and is partially inhibited by a concentration of 3.08 mM. The enriched AOA, which is provisionally classified as "Candidatus Nitrososphaera gargensis," is the first described thermophilic ammonia oxidizer and the first member of the crenarchaeotal group I.1b for which ammonium oxidation has been verified on a cellular level. Its preference for thermophilic conditions reinvigorates the debate on the thermophilic ancestry of AOA.

MeSH Terms
Ammonia/metabolism Archaea/genetics,metabolism Catalysis Hot Temperature In Situ Hybridization, Fluorescence Molecular Sequence Data Oxidation-Reduction Phylogeny RNA, Messenger/genetics RNA, Ribosomal, 16S/genetics Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction Water Microbiology
Chemicals
RNA, Messenger RNA, Ribosomal, 16S Ammonia
Authors & Affiliations
7 authors, click to expand affiliations / ORCID
Hatzenpichler Roland
Department of Microbial Ecology, University of Vienna, Althanstrasse 14, A-1090 Vienna, Austria.
Lebedeva Elena V
Spieck Eva
Stoecker Kilian
Richter Andreas
Daims Holger
Wagner Michael
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Article Info
Journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Abbr.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
ISSN
1091-6490
DOI
10.1073/pnas.0708857105
Published
2008-02-12
Epub
2008-00-04
Pages
2134-9
Language
English
Region
United States
NLM ID
7505876
PMCID
PMC2538889
Subset
IM
Databases
GENBANK
EU281317, EU281318, EU281319, EU281320, EU281321, EU281322, EU281323, EU281324, EU281325, EU281326, EU281327, EU281328, EU281329, EU281330, EU281331, EU281332, EU281333, EU281334, EU281335, EU281336
External Links
PubMed source DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0708857105 PMC Full Text View journal details
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