Published In
Scientific Reports
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
11-5-2013
Subjects
Archaebacteria -- Genetics, Archaebacteria -- Metabolism, Methanococcus -- Metabolism, Anaerobic bacteria -- Molecular aspects, Proteomics
Abstract
Knowledge of taxis (directed swimming) in the Archaea is currently expanding through identification of novel receptors, effectors, and proteins involved in signal transduction to the flagellar motor. Although the ability for biological cells to sense and swim toward hydrogen gas has been hypothesized for many years, this capacity has yet to be observed and demonstrated. Here we show that the average swimming velocity increases in the direction of a source of hydrogen gas for the methanogen, Methanococcus maripaludis using a capillary assay with anoxic gas-phase control and time-lapse microscopy. The results indicate that a methanogen couples motility to hydrogen concentration sensing and is the first direct observation of hydrogenotaxis in any domain of life. Hydrogenotaxis represents a strategy that would impart a competitive advantage to motile microorganisms that compete for hydrogen gas and would impact the C, S and N cycles.
DOI
10.1038/srep03140
Persistent Identifier
http://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/10992
Citation Details
Brileya, K.A., Connolly, J.M., Downey, C., Gerlach, R. & Fields, M.W. Taxis Toward Hydrogen Gas by Methanococcus maripaludis. Sci. Rep. 3, 3140.
Included in
Archaea Commons, Biology Commons, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Commons
Description
Supplementary information accompanies this paper at http://www.nature.com/scientificreports
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0