Abstract
Carbon monoxide (CO) is one of the common gaseous compounds found in hot volcanic environments. It is known to serve as the growth substrate for a number of thermophilic prokaryotes, both aerobic and anaerobic. The goal of this work was to study the process of anaerobic transformation of CO by microbial communities inhabiting natural thermal environments: hot springs of Uzon Caldera, Kamchatka. The anaerobic microbial community of Treshchinny Spring (80°C, pH 6.5) was found to exhibit two peaks of affinity for CO (K S1 = 54 nM and K S2 = 1 μM). The actual rate of anaerobic CO transformation by the microbial community of this spring, calculated after obtaining the concentration dependence curve and extrapolated to the natural concentration of CO dissolved in the hot spring water (20 nM), was found to be 120 μmol l−1 of sediment day−1. In all the hot springs studied, more than 90% of the carbon of 14CO upon anaerobic incubation was recovered as 14CO2. From 1 to 5% of 14CO was transformed to volatile fatty acids (VFA). The number of microorganisms capable of anaerobic CO oxidation determined by dilution-to-extinction method reached 106 cells ml−1 of sediment. CO-transforming anaerobic thermophilic microorganisms isolated from the springs under study exhibited hydrogenogenic type of CO oxidation and belonged to the bacterial genera Carboxydocella and Dictyoglomus. These data suggest a significant role of hydrogenogenic carboxydotrophic prokaryotes in anaerobic CO transformation in Uzon Caldera hot springs.
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Acknowledgments
We are grateful to Nadezhda Kostrikina (Winogradsky Institute of Microbiology, Russian Academy of Sciences) for the electron microscopy of the new isolates. This work was supported by the Russian Academy of Sciences Programs ‘Molecular and Cell Biology’ and ‘Origin and Evolution of the Biosphere’, as well as by NSF-funded research grant ‘Microbial Observatory Kamchatka, an International Interdisciplinary Research Project’ (NSF MCB-02238407).
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Communicated by A. Oren.
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Kochetkova, T.V., Rusanov, I.I., Pimenov, N.V. et al. Anaerobic transformation of carbon monoxide by microbial communities of Kamchatka hot springs. Extremophiles 15, 319–325 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00792-011-0362-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00792-011-0362-7