Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

An unusual cyanobacterium from saline thermal waters with relatives from unexpected habitats

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Extremophiles Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Cyanobacteria that grow above seawater salinity at temperatures above 45°C have rarely been studied. Cyanobacteria of this type of thermo-halophilic extremophile were isolated from siliceous crusts at 40–45°C in a geothermal seawater lagoon in southwest Iceland. Iceland Clone 2e, a Leptolyngbya morphotype, was selected for further study. This culture grew only at 45–50°C, in medium ranging from 28 to 94 g L−1 TDS, It showed 3 doublings 24 h−1 under continuous illumination. This rate at 54°C was somewhat reduced, and death occurred at 58°C. A comparison of the 16S rDNA sequence with all others in the NCBI database revealed 2 related Leptolyngbya isolates from a Greenland hot spring (13–16 g L−1 TDS). Three other similar sequences were from Leptolyngbya isolates from dry, endolithic habitats in Yellowstone National Park. All 6 formed a phylogenetic clade, suggesting common ancestry. These strains shared many similarities to Iceland Clone 2e with respect to temperature and salinity ranges and optima. Two endolithic Leptolyngbya isolates, grown previously at 23°C in freshwater medium, grew well at 50°C but only in saline medium. This study shows that limited genotypic similarity may reveal some salient phenotypic similarities, even when the related cyanobacteria are from vastly different and remote habitats.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3

Similar content being viewed by others

Abbreviations

bp:

Before present

TDS:

Total dissolved solids

SE:

Standard error

CCMEE:

Culture collection of microorganisms from extreme environments

References

  • Abed RMM, Garcia-Pichel F, Hernández-Mariné M (2002) Polyphasic characterization of benthic, moderately halophilic, moderately thermophilic cyanobacteria with very thin trichomes and the proposal of Halomicronema excentricum gen. nov., sp. nov. Arch Microbiol 177:361–370

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Castenholz RW (1988a) Culturing methods for cyanobacteria. In: Abelson J (ed) Methods in enzymology, cyanobacteria, vol 167. Academic Press, NY, pp 68–93

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Castenholz RW (1988b) Thermophilic cyanobacteria: special problems. In: Abelson J (ed) Methods in enzymology, cyanobacteria, vol 167. Academic Press, NY, pp 96–100

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Castenholz RW, Rippka R, Herdman M, Wilmotte A (2001) Subsection III. (formerly oscillatoriales. In: Boone DR, Castenholz RW, Garrity GM (eds) Bergey’s manual of systematic bacteriology. The archaea and the deeply branching and phototrophic bacteria, vol 1, 2nd edn. Springer, NY, pp 539–562

    Google Scholar 

  • Cohen Y, Padan E, Shilo M (1975) Facultative anoxygenic photosynthesis in the cyanobacterium, Oscillatoria limnetica. J Bacteriol 123:855–861

    PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Cohen Y, Krumbein W, Shilo M (1977) Solar Lake (Sinai). 2. Distribution of photosynthetic microorganisms and primary production. Limnol Oceanogr 22:609–620

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Dor I, Hornoff M (1985) Studies on Aphanothece halophytica Frémy from a solar pond: comparison of two isolates on the basis of cell polymorphism and growth response to salinity, temperature and light conditions. Bot Mar 28:389–398

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Garcia-Pichel F, Nübel U, Muyzer G (1998) The phylogeny of unicellular, extremely halotolerant cyanobacteria. Arch Microbiol 169:469–482

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Gudmundsson JS, Hauksson T, Tómasson J (1981) The Reykjanes geothermal field in Iceland: subsurface exploration and well discharge characteristics. In: Proc seventh workshop geothermal reservoir engineering, Stanford, CA, pp 61–69

  • Guindon S, Gascue O (2003) A simple, fast, and accurate algorithm to estimate large phylogenies by maximum likelihood. Syst Biol 52:696–704

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Guindon S, Lethiec F, Duroux P, Gascuel O (2005) PHYML online—a web server for fast maximum likelihood-based phylogenetic inference. Nucleic Acids Res 33(Web Server issue):W557–W559

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Hall TA (1999) BioEdit: a user friendly biological sequence alignment editor and analysis program for Windows 95/98/NT. Nucleic Acids Symp Ser 41:95–98

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Higgins DG, Sharp PM (1988) CLUSTAL: a package for performing multiple sequence alignment on a microcomputer. Gene 73:237–244

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Higgins DG, Sharp PM (1989) Fast and sensitive multiple sequence alignments on a microcomputer. Bioinformatics 5:151–153

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Javor B (1989) Hypersaline environments. Springer, Berlin, p 328

    Google Scholar 

  • Logares R, Rengefors K, Kremp A, Shalchian-Tabrizi K, Boltovskoy A, Tengs T, Shurtleff A, Klaveness D (2007) Phenotypically different microalgal morphospecies with identical ribosomal DNA: a case of rapid adaptive evolution? Microb Ecol 53:549–561

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Miller SR, Castenholz RW (2000) The evolution of thermotolerance in hot spring cyanobacteria of the genus Synechococcus. Appl Environ Microbiol 66:4222–4229

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • More MI, Herrick JB, Silvia MC, Ghiorse WC, Madsen EL (1994) Quantitative cell lysis of indigenous microorganisms and rapid extraction of microbial DNA from sediments. Appl Environ Microbiol 60:1572–1580

    PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Norris TB, Castenholz RW (2006) Endolithic photosynthetic communities within ancient and recent travertine deposits in Yellowstone National Park. FEMS Microbiol Ecol 57:470–483

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Nübel U, Garcia-Pichel F, Muyzer G (1997) PCR primers to amplify 16s rRNA genes from cyanobacteria. Appl Environ Microbiol 63:3327–3332

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Oren A (2000) Salts and brines. In: Whitton BA, Potts M (eds) Ecology of cyanobacteria: their diversity in time and space. Kluwer, Dordrecht, pp 281–306

    Google Scholar 

  • Pétursdóttir SK, Kristjánsson JK (1996) The relationship between physical and chemical conditions and low microbial diversity in the Blue Lagoon geothermal lake in Iceland. FEMS Microbiol Ecol 19:39–45

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Posada D, Crandall KA (1998) Modeltest: testing the model of DNA substitution. Bioinformatics 14:817–818

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Ritz C, Streibig JC (2005) Bioassay analysis using R. Statsoft SYSTAT 12 (software)

  • Rocap G, Larimer FW, Lamerdin J, Malfatti S et al (2003) Genome divergence in two Prochlorococcus ecotypes reflects oceanic niche differentiation. Nature 424:1042–1047

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Roeselers G, Norris TB, Castenholz RW, Rysgaard S, Glud RN, Kühl M, Muyzer G (2007) Diversity of phototrophic bacteria in microbial mats from Arctic hot springs (Greenland). Environ Microbiol 9:26–38

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Thompson JD, Gibson TJ, Plewniak F, Jeanmougin F, Higgins DG (1997) The CLUSTAL_X windows interface: flexible strategies for multiple sequence alignment aided quality analysis tools. Nucleic Acids Res 25:4876–4882

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Tómasson J, Kristmannsdóttir H (1972) High temperature alteration minerals and thermal brines, Reykjanes, Iceland. Contrib Mineral Petrol 36:123–134

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ward DM, Castenholz RW (2000) Cyanobacteria in geothermal habitats. In: Whitton BA, Potts M (eds) Ecology of cyanobacteria: their diversity in time and space. Kluwer, Dordrecht, pp 37–59

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

M. B. gratefully acknowledges the Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India for the DBT Overseas Associateship that permitted this visit from Barkatullah University, Bhopal, India to the Department of Biology, Center for Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Oregon, USA. Statistical analyses were provided by Kevin Emerson and we are grateful for his contribution. We also thank Dr. Jakob Kristjánsson (University of Iceland) for facilitating the collection of microorganisms from hot springs in Iceland and for discussions relating to the Blue Lagoon.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Bioscience, Barkatullah University, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India

    Meenakshi Banerjee

  2. Center for Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, 97403, USA

    R. Craig Everroad & Richard W. Castenholz

Authors
  1. Meenakshi Banerjee
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. R. Craig Everroad
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Richard W. Castenholz
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Richard W. Castenholz.

Additional information

Communicated by F.Robb.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Banerjee, M., Everroad, R.C. & Castenholz, R.W. An unusual cyanobacterium from saline thermal waters with relatives from unexpected habitats. Extremophiles 13, 707–716 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00792-009-0258-y

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00792-009-0258-y

Keywords

Search

Navigation