Diversity of thiosulfate-oxidizing bacteria from marine sediments and hydrothermal vents

• Main Authors: Teske, A., Brinkhoff, T., Muyzer, G., Moser, D.P., Rethmeier, J., Jannasch, H.W.
• Other Authors: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Marine Sciences
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: American Society for Microbiology 2000
• Subjects: bacterium isolation; Proteobacteria; Hydrogen-Ion Concentration; DNA; Ribosomal; marine environment; Phylogeny; Variation (Genetics); nucleotide sequence; Flavobacteria; species difference; species diversity; Posibacteria; bacterium; bacterial growth; oxidation; Seawater; biodiversity; article; hydrothermal vent community; sediment; temperature; Psychroflexus; Sequence Analysis; Cytophaga; Geologic Sediments; Thiosulfates; Flavobacterium; Bacteria (microorganisms); Bacteroides phylum; spatial distribution; sulfate; bacterium isolate; Gram-Negative Bacteria; Phenotype; Alphaproteobacteria; Bacteroides; Halomonas; phylogenetics; thiosulfate; Molecular Sequence Data; nonhuman; Atlantic Ocean; Oxidation-Reduction; RNA; 16S; Pseudoalteromonas; Antarctic; Galapagos; Antarc*
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.17615/55ds-0958; https://cdr.lib.unc.edu/downloads/xw42nj73h?file=thumbnail; https://cdr.lib.unc.edu/downloads/xw42nj73h

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 103- and 104-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.