Uncultivated thermophiles: current status and spotlight on ‘Aigarchaeota’
Hedlund B, Murugapiran S, Alba T, Levy A, Dodsworth J, Goertz G, Ivanova N, Woyke T. 2015. Uncultivated thermophiles: current status and spotlight on ‘Aigarchaeota’. Current Opinion in Microbiology. 25:136–145
Meta-analysis of cultivation-independent sequence data shows that geothermal systems host an abundance of novel organisms, representing a vast unexplored phylogenetic and functional diversity among yet-uncultivated thermophiles. A number of thermophiles have recently been interrogated using metagenomic and/or single-cell genomic approaches, including members of taxonomic groups that inhabit both thermal and non-thermal environments, such as ‘Acetothermia’ (OP1) and ‘Atribacteria’ (OP9/JS1), as well as the exclusively thermophilic lineages ‘Korarchaeota’, ‘Calescamantes’ (EM19), ‘Fervidibacteria’ (OctSpA1-106), and ‘Aigarchaeota’ (HWCG-I). The ‘Aigarchaeota’, a sister lineage to the Thaumarchaeota, likely includes both hyperthermophiles and moderate thermophiles. They inhabit terrestrial, marine, and subsurface thermal environments and comprise at least nine genus-level lineages, several of which are globally distributed.
- Type
- Journal Article
- Authors
- Hedlund, Brian; Murugapiran, Senthil; Alba, Timothy; Levy, Asaf; Dodsworth, Jeremy; Goertz, Gisele; Ivanova, Natalia; Woyke, Tanja
- Units
- GRYN , YELL
- Keywords
- Aigarchaeota, metagenomics, Obsidian Pool, Thermophiles, Yellowstone