Earth’s microbiota is remarkably pervasive, thriving at extremely high temperature, low and high pH, high salinity, and low water availability. One major evolutionary lineage of microbial life, the Archaea, is especially adept at exploiting environmental extremes. Despite their success in these challenging habitats, the Archaea may now also be viewed as cosmopolitan. Archaea are now…
Why Sequence Olavius algarvensis Symbionts?
In contrast to many other marine invertebrates that generally harbor only a single bacterial symbiont, gutless oligochaetes are unique in having established highly specific and stable associations with multiple endosymbiotic species. These small worms have completely reduced their digestive and excretory systems and live in obligate symbiosis with phylogenetically diverse co-occurring bacterial symbionts. This project…
Why Sequence a Group 4 Verrucomicrobium?
It is a disturbing reality that we have only fragmentary understanding of the enormous microbial diversity that exists on our planet. This applies not merely to microbes living in extreme environments, which would be expected to possess unusual and perhaps not yet fully characterized properties, but also to those microbes in more mundane habitats, like…
Why Sequence Hyperthermophilic Archaea?
The hyperthermophile genus Pyrobaculum represents a unique clade among the archaea because its cultured members respire toxic metals such as arsenic and selenium, sulfur compounds, ferric (Fe(III)) iron, nitrate, and oxygen. Pyrobaculum species are also capable of chemolithotrophic and organotrophic growth. In contrast to the emerging crenarchaeal model Sulfolobus, which is an acidophilic obligate aerobe,…
Why Sequence a Terephthalate-Degrading Microbial Community?
Every year, enormous amounts of high-strength terephthalate-containing wastewater are produced as a byproduct of the plastics industry. The wastewater is currently treated by using anaerobic biological treatment processes that involve mesophilic (moderate-temperature-loving) microbes growing at 35-37°C. Recently, a thermophilic (heating-loving) terephthalate-degrading community growing at around 55°C has been developed in a lab-scale bioreactor as a…
Why Sequence Microbes in a Termite’s Gut?
A long-standing mission for DOE is to replace fossil fuels with renewable sources of cleaner energy, such as hydrogen produced from plant biomass fermentations. Termites efficiently transform the more abundant fractions of plant biomass (lignocellulose) as well as the more recalcitrant fractions of organic-rich soils (humic acids) to valuable metabolites (e.g. hydrogen and methane). They…
Why Sequence Sinorhizobium medicae?
Natural and agricultural systems are nitrogen deficient and therefore often depend for productivity upon atmospheric nitrogen fixed in nodules formed on legumes by root nodule bacteria. The commonly accepted figure for global nitrogen fixation in agriculture is 25-90 million metric tons, worth in excess of U.S. $10 billion. Rhizobia associated with annual pasture legumes contribute…
Why Sequence Salinispora Species?
Actinomycetes are the most significant source of microbial natural products ever discovered, accounting for more than one half of all known antibiotics. JGI’s collaborators have recently discovered a new actinomycete genus, for which they have proposed the name Salinispora, and this taxon is proving to be an important source of novel secondary metabolites, including a…
Why Sequence Free-Living and Endosymbiotic Polynucleobacter Species?
The Polynucleobacter group (Betaproteobacteria, Burkholderiaceae) is of enormous environmental relevance in freshwater habitats. These free-living heterotrophic bacteria contribute up to 60% of total bacterial cell numbers in the pelagic zone of surface freshwater habitats and have also been detected in groundwater. Despite their enormous ecological importance, knowledge of the physiology and specific ecological function of…
Why Sequence Nitrosomonas?
This project will provide genome sequence information for two oligotrophic ammonia-oxidizing bacteria that mediate the first step in the process of nitrification, Nitrosomonas oligotropha and Isolate IS-79. These bacteria belong to a cluster of the Nitrosomonas with higher substrate affinity (low Km), lower growth rates, and increased sensitivity to high ammonia concentrations compared to N….