Happy together: genomic insights into the unique Nanoarchaeum/Ignicoccus association
A unique association in the archaeal world The discovery of Nanoarchaeum equitans in a hydrothermal vent off the coast of Iceland by the group of Karl Stetter in 2002 has been one of the most exciting findings of the past decade in microbiology [1,2]. This tiny regular coccus (400 nm = 1 % of the vo...
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| Language: | English |
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| Online Access: | http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.644.7719 http://jbiol.com/content/pdf/jbiol110.pdf |
| Summary: | A unique association in the archaeal world The discovery of Nanoarchaeum equitans in a hydrothermal vent off the coast of Iceland by the group of Karl Stetter in 2002 has been one of the most exciting findings of the past decade in microbiology [1,2]. This tiny regular coccus (400 nm = 1 % of the volume of Escherichia coli) lives at the surface (equitans meaning ‘riding’) of its host, the crenarch-aeon Ignicoccus hospitalis (hospitalis referring to the ability to serve as a host for N. equitans), which belongs to the order Desulfurococcales within the Crenarchaeota (Figure 1). Members of the genus Ignicoccus are the only obligatory anaerobic chemolithoautotrophic sulfur reducers within the Desulfurococcales, coupling elemental sulfur respiration and carbon dioxide fixation through a novel and unique pathway called the dicarboxylate/4-hydroxybutyrate cycle |
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