Zinc (Zn) is an essential micronutrient but may become toxic when present in excess. In Zn-contaminated environments, trees can be protected from Zn toxicity by their root-associated micro-organisms, in particular ectomycorrhizal fungi. The mechanisms of cellular Zn homeostasis in ectomycorrhizal fungi and their contribution to the host tree’s Zn status are however not yet fully… [Read More]

Background: With the discovery of interspecies hydrogen transfer in the late 1960s (Bryant et al. in Arch Microbiol 59:20-31, 1967), it was shown that reducing the partial pressure of hydrogen could cause mixed acid fermenting organisms to produce acetate at the expense of ethanol. Hydrogen and ethanol are both more reduced than glucose. Thus there… [Read More]

Soil biosolarization (SBS) is a pest control technique that combines passive solar heating and fermentation of amended organic matter. The extreme soil conditions generated during SBS could decrease microbial biomass and restructure the soil microbiome, which could impact soil quality. Digestates from anaerobic digesters may harbor microbial communities tolerant of the oxygen, moisture, and temperature… [Read More]

Desulfoluna spongiiphila strain AA1 is an organohalide respiring bacterium, isolated from the marine sponge Aplysina aerophoba, that can use brominated and iodinated phenols, in addition to sulfate and thiosulfate as terminal electron acceptors. The genome of Desulfoluna spongiiphila strain AA1 is approximately 6.5 Mb. Three putative reductive dehalogenase (rdhA) genes involved in respiratory metabolism of… [Read More]

Bigelowiella natans is a mixotrophic flagellate and member of the chlorarachniophytes (Rhizaria), whose plastid is derived from a green algal endosymbiont. With the completion of the B. natans nuclear genome we are able to begin the analysis of the structure, function and evolution of the photosynthetic apparatus. B. natans has undergone substantial changes in photosystem… [Read More]

Soil is one of Earth’s largest carbon (C) sinks, and the diverse community of fungi it houses may affect soil C storage through the biosynthesis of recalcitrant cell wall polymers like melanin. We tested the hypotheses that (1) specific biological features of fungi – evolutionary history, functional guild, growth rate, and functional gene abundance in… [Read More]

Strain EPL6(T), a Gram-negative, motile, short rod was isolated from a propanil and 3,4-dichloroaniline enrichment culture produced from rice paddy soil. Based on the analyses of the 16S rRNA gene sequence, strain EPL6(T) was observed to be a member of the family Comamonadaceae, sharing the highest pairwise identity with type strains of the species Alicycliphilus… [Read More]

BACKGROUND: Pyruvate decarboxylase (PDC) is a well-known pathway for ethanol production, but has not been demonstrated for high titer ethanol production at temperatures above 50 degrees C. RESULT: Here we examined the thermostability of eight PDCs. The purified bacterial enzymes retained 20% of activity after incubation for 30 min at 55 degrees C. Expression of… [Read More]

Altitude significantly affects vegetation growth and distribution, including the developmental stages of a forest. We used shotgun Illumina sequencing to analyze microbial community composition and functional potential in melojo-oak (Quercus pyrenaica Willd.) rhizospheric soil for three different development stages along an altitudinal gradient: (a) a low altitude, non-optimal site for forest maintenance; (b) an intermediate… [Read More]

Marine sponges are ancient metazoans that are populated by distinct and highly diverse microbial communities. In order to obtain deeper insights into the functional gene repertoire of the Mediterranean sponge Aplysina aerophoba, we combined Illumina short-read and PacBio long-read sequencing followed by un-targeted metagenomic binning. We identified a total of 37 high-quality bins representing 11… [Read More]