IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v407y2000i6806d10.1038_35038060.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Isolation of a 250 million-year-old halotolerant bacterium from a primary salt crystal

Author

Listed:
  • Russell H. Vreeland

    (West Chester University)

  • William D. Rosenzweig

    (West Chester University)

  • Dennis W. Powers

    (Consulting Geologist, Box 87)

Abstract

Bacteria have been found associated with a variety of ancient samples1, however few studies are generally accepted due to questions about sample quality and contamination. When Cano and Borucki2 isolated a strain of Bacillus sphaericus from an extinct bee trapped in 25–30 million-year-old amber, careful sample selection and stringent sterilization techniques were the keys to acceptance. Here we report the isolation and growth of a previously unrecognized spore-forming bacterium (Bacillus species, designated 2-9-3) from a brine inclusion within a 250 million-year-old salt crystal from the Permian Salado Formation. Complete gene sequences of the 16S ribosomal DNA show that the organism is part of the lineage of Bacillus marismortui and Virgibacillus pantothenticus. Delicate crystal structures and sedimentary features indicate the salt has not recrystallized since formation. Samples were rejected if brine inclusions showed physical signs of possible contamination. Surfaces of salt crystal samples were sterilized with strong alkali and acid before extracting brines from inclusions. Sterilization procedures reduce the probability of contamination to less than 1 in 109.

Suggested Citation

  • Russell H. Vreeland & William D. Rosenzweig & Dennis W. Powers, 2000. "Isolation of a 250 million-year-old halotolerant bacterium from a primary salt crystal," Nature, Nature, vol. 407(6806), pages 897-900, October.
  • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:407:y:2000:i:6806:d:10.1038_35038060
    DOI: 10.1038/35038060
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/35038060
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/35038060?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Blath, Jochen & Buzzoni, Eugenio & Koskela, Jere & Wilke Berenguer, Maite, 2020. "Statistical tools for seed bank detection," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 1-15.

    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:nature:v:407:y:2000:i:6806:d:10.1038_35038060. 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.