New Life Form Discovered in Yellowstone

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A novel bacterium capable of photosynthesis was discovered in Yellowstone national park.  Typically when you discover a new bacterium, you must isolate it, grow it, get to know its habits, etc.  However, the organism was discovered using a novel approach - termed 'metagenomics'.

The bacterium, named Candidatus chloracidobacterium (Cab.) thermophilum, loves the heat and is found in bubbling pools at 50-65 degrees celsius - pools reminiscent of the bubbling gook many have in their mind's eye when thinking of the origins of life, with coatings of microbial mats coloured bright yellow and orange and red.  Reminds me of the month-old leftovers at the back of my fridge.

So why is this exciting, and not brushed off as 'just more muck in a soup of muck'?  Well, this particular bug possessed some rather unexpected biochemical 'machinery' that has not been found in organisms inhabiting oxygen-rich waters - a chlorosome.

Like your run of the mill chloroplast found in plant cells, chlorosomes contain chlorophyl, and convert light into energy stored in chemical bonds.  However, chlorosomes do it in a rather interesting manner.  To date, the only organisms that use chlorosomes are referred to as 'facultative anaerobic photoautotrophs'(1).  

If it sounds greek to you, that's because it is.  Here's a translation - uses sunlight to make energy to survive, when there is or isn't oxygen available.  Compare this with your average lang plant, which requires oxygen (Yes, plants require oxygen like animals.  When the sun goes down, plants use their energy stores along with oxygen to maintain their physique).

The research team discovered both the organism and its interesting ability to make a living using metagenomics.  This process allows researchers to probe real world environments for genes already known to serve a particular role in various organisms.  They can also predict the abundance of a large variety of organisms, their distribution, and potentially the way they interact with one another without peering into a microscope.

The actual process involves collecting a sample from the real environment, mushing up all the microorganisms, extracting the DNA and performing a genomic BLAST - matching up bits and pieces of gene sequences to those already stored in an electronic gene bank.

Reference

(1) Frigaard and Bryant, (2004) Arch. Microbiol. 182: 265-276.