IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v6y2015i1d10.1038_ncomms7372.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Diverse uncultivated ultra-small bacterial cells in groundwater

Author

Listed:
  • Birgit Luef

    (University of California
    Present addresses: Department of Biotechnology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim 7491, Norway)

  • Kyle R. Frischkorn

    (University of California
    Present addresses: Department of Earth and Environmental Science, Columbia University, Palisades, New York 10964-800, USA)

  • Kelly C. Wrighton

    (University of California
    Present addresses: Department of Microbiology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210, USA)

  • Hoi-Ying N. Holman

    (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)

  • Giovanni Birarda

    (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)

  • Brian C. Thomas

    (University of California)

  • Andrea Singh

    (University of California)

  • Kenneth H. Williams

    (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)

  • Cristina E. Siegerist

    (University of California)

  • Susannah G. Tringe

    (Joint Genome Institute)

  • Kenneth H. Downing

    (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)

  • Luis R. Comolli

    (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
    Present addresses: ALS-Molecular Biology Consortium, Advanced Light Source Beamline 4.2.2, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, California 94720, USA)

  • Jillian F. Banfield

    (University of California
    Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
    Policy and Management, University of California)

Abstract

Bacteria from phyla lacking cultivated representatives are widespread in natural systems and some have very small genomes. Here we test the hypothesis that these cells are small and thus might be enriched by filtration for coupled genomic and ultrastructural characterization. Metagenomic analysis of groundwater that passed through a ~0.2-μm filter reveals a wide diversity of bacteria from the WWE3, OP11 and OD1 candidate phyla. Cryogenic transmission electron microscopy demonstrates that, despite morphological variation, cells consistently have small cell size (0.009±0.002 μm3). Ultrastructural features potentially related to cell and genome size minimization include tightly packed spirals inferred to be DNA, few densely packed ribosomes and a variety of pili-like structures that might enable inter-organism interactions that compensate for biosynthetic capacities inferred to be missing from genomic data. The results suggest that extremely small cell size is associated with these relatively common, yet little known organisms.

Suggested Citation

  • Birgit Luef & Kyle R. Frischkorn & Kelly C. Wrighton & Hoi-Ying N. Holman & Giovanni Birarda & Brian C. Thomas & Andrea Singh & Kenneth H. Williams & Cristina E. Siegerist & Susannah G. Tringe & Kenne, 2015. "Diverse uncultivated ultra-small bacterial cells in groundwater," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 6(1), pages 1-8, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:6:y:2015:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms7372
    DOI: 10.1038/ncomms7372
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms7372
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/ncomms7372?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Natasha K. Dudek & Jesus G. Galaz-Montoya & Handuo Shi & Megan Mayer & Cristina Danita & Arianna I. Celis & Tobias Viehboeck & Gong-Her Wu & Barry Behr & Silvia Bulgheresi & Kerwyn Casey Huang & Wah C, 2023. "Previously uncharacterized rectangular bacterial structures in the dolphin mouth," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-15, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:6:y:2015:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms7372. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.