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.
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: American Society for Microbiology 2000
• Subjects: Microbial Ecology; Antarctic; Galapagos; Antarc*
• Online Access: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC92124; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10919760

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.