Uncovering a microbial enigma: isolation and characterization of the streamer-generating, iron-oxidizing, acidophilic bacterium "Ferrovum myxofaciens".

ABSTRACT: A betaproteobacterium, shown by molecular techniques to have widespread global distribution in extremely acidic (pH 2 to 4) ferruginous mine waters and also to be a major component of "acid streamer" growths in mine-impacted water bodies, has proven to be recalcitrant to enrichment and isolation. A modified "overlay" solid medium was devised and used to isolate this bacterium from a number of mine water samples. The physiological and phylogenetic characteristics of a pure culture of an isolate from an abandoned copper mine ("Ferrovum myxofaciens" strain P3G) have been elucidated. "F. myxofaciens" is an extremely acidophilic, psychrotolerant obligate autotroph that appears to use only ferrous iron as an electron donor and oxygen as an electron acceptor. It appears to use the Calvin-Benson-B

SUBMITTER: Johnson DB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3911105 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature