Submarine hydrothermal vents are geochemically reactive habitats that harbour rich microbial communities. There are striking parallels between the chemistry of the H(2)-CO(2) redox couple that is present in hydrothermal systems and the core energy metabolic reactions of some modern prokaryotic autotrophs. The biochemistry of these autotrophs might, in turn, harbour clues about the kinds of reactions that initiated the chemistry of life. Hydrothermal vents thus unite microbiology and geology to breathe new life into research into one of biology's most important questions - what is the origin of life?
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Pacmanvirus isolated from the Lost City hydrothermal field extends the concept of transpoviron beyond the family Mimiviridae.
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Information Génomique & Structurale, Unité Mixte de Recherche 7256, Aix-Marseille University, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, IMM, IM2B, 13288, Marseille Cedex 9, France.
The microbial sampling of submarine hydrothermal vents remains challenging, with even fewer studies focused on viruses. Here we report the first isolation of a eukaryotic virus from the Lost City hydrothermal field, by co-culture with the laboratory host Acanthamoeba castellanii. This virus, named pacmanvirus lostcity, is closely related to previously isolated pacmanviruses (strains A23 and S19), clustering in a divergent clade within the long-established family Asfarviridae.
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Department of Ocean Sciences, Inha University, 100 Inha-ro, Michuhol-gu, Incheon 22212, Republic of Korea.
Organisms occupy diverse ecological niches worldwide, each with characteristics finely evolved for their environments. Crustaceans residing in deep-sea hydrothermal vents, recognized as one of Earth's extreme environments, may have adapted to withstand severe conditions, including elevated temperatures and pressure. This study compares the exoskeletons of two vent crustaceans (bythograeid crab sp.
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View Article and Find Full Text PDFCumaceans (Crustacea, Peracarida) associated with shallow-water hydrothermal vents at Banderas Bay, Mexico.
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Departamento de Artes, Educación y Humanidades, Centro Universitario de la Costa, Universidad de Guadalajara, Av. Universidad de Guadalajara 203, CP 48280, Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, Mexico Departamento de Artes, Educación y Humanidades, Centro Universitario de la Costa, Universidad de Guadalajara, Av. Universidad de Guadalajara 203, CP 48280 Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco Mexico.
Background: Cumaceans mostly inhabit marine environments, where they play a crucial role in marine food webs and actively participate in the transfer between benthic and pelagic systems. Scientific interest in these crustaceans has been increasing, but is limited to certain geographic areas, which do not include extreme environments such as hydrothermal vents.
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Conversion of pyridoxal to pyridoxamine with NH and H on nickel generates a protometabolic nitrogen shuttle under serpentinizing conditions.
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Institute of Molecular Evolution, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Germany.
Serpentinizing hydrothermal vents are likely sites for the origin of metabolism because they produce H as a source of electrons for CO reduction while depositing zero-valent iron, cobalt, and nickel as catalysts for organic reactions. Recent work has shown that solid-state nickel can catalyze the H-dependent reduction of CO to various organic acids and their reductive amination with H and NH to biological amino acids under the conditions of H-producing hydrothermal vents and that amino acid synthesis from NH, H, and 2-oxoacids is facile in the presence of Ni. Such reactions suggest a metallic origin of metabolism during early biochemical evolution because single metals replace the function of over 130 enzymatic reactions at the core of metabolism in microbes that use the acetyl-CoA pathway of CO fixation.
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