Published In

Nature Communications

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

7-5-2016

Subjects

Archaebacteria -- Genetic aspects, Molecular biology, Thermophilic microorganism, Archaebacteria -- Evolution

Abstract

Biological features can be inferred, based on genomic data, for many microbial lineages that remain uncultured. However, cultivation is important for characterizing an organism’s physiology and testing its genome-encoded potential. Here we use single-cell genomics to infer cultivation conditions for the isolation of an ectosymbiotic Nanoarchaeota (‘Nanopusillus acidilobi’) and its host (Acidilobus, a crenarchaeote) from a terrestrial geothermal environment. The cells of ‘Nanopusillus’ are among the smallest known cellular organisms (100–300 nm). They appear to have a complete genetic information processing machinery, but lack almost all primary biosynthetic functions as well as respiration and ATP synthesis. Genomic and proteomic comparison with its distant relative, the marine Nanoarchaeum equitans illustrate an ancient, common evolutionary history of adaptation of the Nanoarchaeota to ectosymbiosis, so far unique among the Archaea.

Description

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. Copyright 2016 The Author(s). Supplementary Information

DOI

10.1038/ncomms12115

Persistent Identifier

http://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/18029

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