Phylogenetic diversity and functional gene patterns of sulfur-oxidizing subseafloor Epsilonproteobacteria in diffuse hydrothermal vent fluids.

ABSTRACT: Microorganisms throughout the dark ocean use reduced sulfur compounds for chemolithoautotrophy. In many deep-sea hydrothermal vents, sulfide oxidation is quantitatively the most important chemical energy source for microbial metabolism both at and beneath the seafloor. In this study, the presence and activity of vent endemic Epsilonproteobacteria was examined in six low-temperature diffuse vents over a range of geochemical gradients from Axial Seamount, a deep-sea volcano in the Northeast Pacific. PCR primers were developed and applied to target the sulfur oxidation soxB gene of Epsilonproteobacteria. soxB genes belonging to the genera Sulfurimonas and Sulfurovum are both present and expressed at most diffuse vent sites, but not in background seawater. Although Sulfurovum-like soxB genes w

SUBMITTER: Akerman NH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3703533 | biostudies-literature | 2013

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature