Diversity of Thiosulfate-Oxidizing Bacteria from Marine Sediments and Hydrothermal Vents

• Published in: Applied and Environmental Microbiology
• Main Authors: Teske, A., Brinkhoff, T., Muyzer, G., Moser, D. P., Rethmeier, J., Jannasch, H. W.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: American Society for Microbiology 2000
• Subjects: Antarctic; Galapagos; Antarc*
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/aem.66.8.3125-3133.2000; https://journals.asm.org/doi/pdf/10.1128/AEM.66.8.3125-3133.2000

ABSTRACT 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 .