Nitrososphaera viennensis , an ammonia oxidizing archaeon from soil

Abstract

Genes of archaea encoding homologues of ammonia monooxygenases have been found on a widespread basis and in large amounts in almost all terrestrial and marine environments, indicating that ammonia oxidizing archaea (AOA) might play a major role in nitrification on Earth. However, only one pure isolate of this group from a marine environment has so far been obtained, demonstrating archaeal ammonia oxidation coupled with autotrophic growth similar to the bacterial counterparts. Here we describe the cultivation and isolation of an AOA from soil. It grows on ammonia or urea as an energy source and is capable of using higher ammonia concentrations than the marine isolate, Nitrosopumilus maritimus. Surprisingly, although it is able to grow chemolithoautotrophically, considerable growth rates of this strain are obtained only upon addition of low amounts of pyruvate or when grown in coculture with bacteria. Our findings expand the recognized metabolic spectrum of AOA and help explain controversial results obtained in the past on the activity and carbon assimilation of these globally distributed organisms.amoA | physiology | Thaumarchaeota | nitrite | NanoSIMS

Differential degradation of intact polar and core glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraether lipids upon post-depositional oxidation

“…in situ production of a small amount of IPL iGDGTs in the oxidized sediment by sedimentary aerobic Thaumarchaeota. These likely function via aerobic oxidation of ammonium (Könneke et al, 2005;Wuchter et al, 2006b;de la Torre et al, 2008;Walker et al, 2010;Tourna et al, 2011), formed from the break-down of OM when O 2 was penetrating into the sediments. To examine the oxic degradation and potential production of individual IPL iGDGTs, we performed direct analysis of IPL crenarchaeol.…”

Intra-Field Variation of Prokaryotic Communities On and Below the Seafloor in the Back-Arc Hydrothermal System of the Southern Mariana Trough

“…These clones are relatively close to the ammonia-oxidizers, e.g., Nitrososphaera spp. (Tourna et al 2011) or Candidatus "Nitrosocaldus yellowstonii" (De La Torre et al 2008) (Suppl. 24.2).…”

A Method for Cell Culture and Maintenance of Ammonia-Oxidizing Archaea in Agar Stab

“…The most direct way to address these questions is to identify factors associated with these functions through a reliable culture method. However, AOA are mainly cultivated through liquid media of enriched cells (marginally co-cultured with few bacterial species), as reported previously [7][8][9]. Although these methods could provide relatively high levels of purities, an alternative method is still needed to provide more information (physiological and biochemical aspects) from various culture conditions.…”

“…We here provided a simple method for cultivating AOA using agar stab as a medium. This method was established, based on the fact that favorable growth had been observed when AOA were cultured in static and microaerobic conditions [8,9]. We presumed that an agar stab could provide these conditions to AOA reliably.…”

“…Because AOA have been recognized as plausible contributors to natural biogeochemical cycles, many attempts have been made to evaluate the utility of various media for isolating and cultivating AOA from various environmental niches [1,[7][8][9]11] and mainly accessed through enriched culture in liquid media. A reliable stab culture system, used here, could serve as an alternative route for cultivating AOA strains, because the resulting cultures, including another case of an isolate MYI [11] were successfully transferred to original enriched media (liquid) without a significant loss of cell viability or ammonia-oxidizing activity.…”