Consortia of multicellular magnetotactic bacteria (MMB) are currently the only known example of bacteria without a unicellular stage in their life cycle. Because of their recalcitrance to cultivation, most previous studies of MMB have been limited to microscopic observations. To study the biology of these unique organisms in more detail, we use multiple culture-independent approaches… [Read More]

Microbial genomes produced by standard single-cell amplification methods are largely incomplete. Here, we show that primary template-directed amplification (PTA), a novel single-cell amplification technique, generated nearly complete genomes from three bacterial isolate species. Furthermore, taxonomically diverse genomes recovered from aquatic and soil microbiomes using PTA had a median completeness of 81%, whereas genomes from standard… [Read More]

Here, we report the draft genome sequence of Nitrobacter vulgaris DSM 10236T, a nitrite-oxidizing bacterium isolated from a sewage system in Hamburg, Germany. The genome is 4.3 Mb in size with 4,585 predicted genes, including the full complement of genes necessary for growth on nitrite (narK, nxrA, nxrB, nxrC, and nxrD). [Read More]

BackgroundMercury (Hg) is highly toxic and has the potential to cause severe health problems for humans and foraging animals when transported into edible plant parts. Soil rhizobia that form symbiosis with legumes may possess mechanisms to prevent heavy metal translocation from roots to shoots in plants by exporting metals from nodules or compartmentalizing metal ions… [Read More]

BackgroundThe Atribacterota are widely distributed in the subsurface biosphere. Recently, the first Atribacterota isolate was described and the number of Atribacterota genome sequences retrieved from environmental samples has increased significantly; however, their diversity, physiology, ecology, and evolution remain poorly understood.ResultsWe report the isolation of the second member of Atribacterota, Thermatribacter velox gen. nov., sp. nov.,… [Read More]

This Genome Watch highlights recent metagenomic surveys that have revealed the extensive prevalence and diversity of plasmids in the human gut microbiome and discusses the challenges in accurately reporting plasmid genomes identified from metagenomic data. [Read More]

Microbes in marine ecosystems have evolved their gene content to thrive successfully in the cold. Although this process has been reasonably well studied in bacteria and selected eukaryotes, less is known about the impact of cold environments on the genomes of viruses that infect eukaryotes. Here, we analyzed cold adaptations in giant viruses (Nucleocytoviricota and… [Read More]