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Desulfurococcales

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The Prokaryotes

Introduction

The order Desulfurococcales (Huber and Stetter, 2001b) is one of three orders of the archaeal phylum Crenarchaeota (Woese et al., 1990), which also includes Thermoproteales (Huber and Stetter, 2001a) and Sulfolobales (Stetter, 1989). Cells of members of the Desulfurococcales are regular to irregular cocci, discs or dishes, which occur singly, in pairs, short chains, or grapelike aggregates. Diameters of coccoid cells vary from about 0.5 up to 15 µm, while disc-shaped cells frequently exhibit ultra-flat areas only about 0.1 to 0.2 µm thick. All members of the order Desulfurococcales are hyperthermophiles with optimal growth temperatures between 85 and 106°C. They grow anaerobically, facultatively anaerobically, or aerobically. Under autotrophic conditions, they gain energy by oxidation of hydrogen using elemental sulfur, thiosulfate, nitrate, or nitrite as electron acceptor, and they use CO2as a carbon source. Alternatively, organotrophic growth occurs by aerobic...

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Authors
  1. Harald Huber
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  2. Karl O. Stetter
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Microbiology, University of Minnesota, Box 196, Twin Cities, Minneapolis, MN 55455-0312, USA

    Martin Dworkin Professor Dr. (Editor-in-Chief) (Editor-in-Chief)

  2. Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Stanford University Medical School, 299 Campus Drive, Fairchild, D039, Stanford, CA, 94305-5124, USA

    Stanley Falkow

  3. Department of Molecular Microbiology and Biotechnology, Tel Aviv University, Ramat-Aviv, 69978, Israel

    Eugene Rosenberg

  4. Department of Microbiology, Technical University Munich, 80290, Munich, Germany

    Karl-Heinz Schleifer

  5. DSMZ- German Collection of Microorganisms and Cell Cultures GmbH, Mascheroder Weg 1b, 38124, Braunschweig, Germany

    Erko Stackebrandt

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Huber, H., Stetter, K.O. (2006). Desulfurococcales. In: Dworkin, M., Falkow, S., Rosenberg, E., Schleifer, KH., Stackebrandt, E. (eds) The Prokaryotes. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-30743-5_4

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