Dietzia schimae sp. nov. and Dietzia cercidiphylli sp. nov., from surface-sterilized plant tissues.

Two actinobacterial strains, YIM 65001(T) and YIM 65002(T), were isolated from surface-sterilized plant tissues collected from Yunnan Province, south-west China, and their taxonomic positions were determined by using a polyphasic approach. The DNA G+C contents of strains YIM 65001(T) and YIM 65002(T) were 71.9 and 72.

Nocardia altamirensis sp. nov., isolated from Altamira cave, Cantabria, Spain.

A novel actinomycete strain, OFN S17(T), was isolated from a sample collected from Altamira Cave, Cantabria, Spain. This strain was identified by using a polyphasic taxonomic approach. The 16S rRNA, hsp65 and sod gene sequences of the strain were determined and compared with those of representative Nocardia species.

The genome of Hyperthermus butylicus: a sulfur-reducing, peptide fermenting, neutrophilic Crenarchaeote growing up to 108 degrees C.

Hyperthermus butylicus, a hyperthermophilic neutrophile and anaerobe, is a member of the archaeal kingdom Crenarchaeota. Its genome consists of a single circular chromosome of 1,667,163 bp with a 53.7% G+C content.

pIT3, a cryptic plasmid isolated from the hyperthermophilic crenarchaeon Sulfolobus solfataricus IT3.

The plasmid pIT3 (4,967 bp) was isolated from the hyperthermophilic archaeon Sulfolobus solfataricus, strain IT3. The completely sequenced plasmid contains six open reading frames (ORFs), the largest (ORF915) spanning more than half of the plasmid and encoding a putative protein with significant similarity to the helicase domain of viral and plasmid primase proteins, as well as to the newly described archaeal primase-polymerase domain. A small ORF, (ORF80), located upstream of this putative polymerase, encodes a putative copy number control protein.

Novel genes for nitrite reductase and Amo-related proteins indicate a role of uncultivated mesophilic crenarchaeota in nitrogen cycling.

Mesophilic crenarchaeota are frequently found in terrestrial and marine habitats worldwide, but despite their considerable abundance the physiology of these as yet uncultivated archaea has remained unknown. From a 1.2 Gb large-insert environmental fosmid library of a calcareous grassland soil, a 43 kb genomic fragment was isolated with a ribosomal RNA that shows its affiliation to group 1.

The genome of Sulfolobus acidocaldarius, a model organism of the Crenarchaeota.

Sulfolobus acidocaldarius is an aerobic thermoacidophilic crenarchaeon which grows optimally at 80 degrees C and pH 2 in terrestrial solfataric springs. Here, we describe the genome sequence of strain DSM639, which has been used for many seminal studies on archaeal and crenarchaeal biology. The circular genome carries 2,225,959 bp (37% G+C) with 2,292 predicted protein-encoding genes.

Divergent transcriptional and translational signals in Archaea.

Many Archaea, in contrast to bacteria, produce a high proportion of leaderless transcripts, show a wide variation in their consensus Shine-Dalgarno (S-D) sequences and frequently use GUG and UUG start codons. In order to understand the basis for these differences, 18 complete archaeal genomes were examined for sequence signals that are positionally conserved upstream from genes. These functional motifs include box A promoter sequences for leaderless transcripts and S-D sequences for transcripts with leaders.

The genome sequence of the extreme thermophile Thermus thermophilus.

Thermus thermophilus HB27 is an extremely thermophilic, halotolerant bacterium, which was originally isolated from a natural thermal environment in Japan. This organism has considerable biotechnological potential; many thermostable proteins isolated from members of the genus Thermus are indispensable in research and in industrial applications. We present here the complete genome sequence of T.

Reconstruction of the central carbohydrate metabolism of Thermoproteus tenax by use of genomic and biochemical data.

The hyperthermophilic, facultatively heterotrophic crenarchaeum Thermoproteus tenax was analyzed using a low-coverage shotgun-sequencing approach. A total of 1.81 Mbp (representing 98.

First insight into the genome of an uncultivated crenarchaeote from soil.

Molecular phylogenetic surveys based on the characterization of 16S rRNA genes have revealed that soil is an environment particularly rich in microbial diversity. A clade of crenarchaeota (archaea) has frequently been detected among many other novel lineages of uncultivated bacteria. In this study we have initiated a genomic approach for the characterization of uncultivated microorganisms from soil.

The genome of Methanosarcina mazei: evidence for lateral gene transfer between bacteria and archaea.

The Archaeon Methanosarcina mazei and related species are of great ecological importance as they are the only organisms fermenting acetate, methylamines and methanol to methane, carbon dioxide and ammonia (in case of methylamines). Since acetate is the precursor of 60% of the methane produced on earth these organisms contribute significantly to the production of this greenhouse gas, e.g.