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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, February 2007, p. 838-845, Vol. 73, No. 3
0099-2240/07/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/AEM.01726-06
Copyright © 2007, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

The Unique 16S rRNA Genes of Piezophiles Reflect both Phylogeny and Adaptation{triangledown} ,{dagger}

Federico M. Lauro, Roger A. Chastain, Lesley E. Blankenship, A. Aristides Yayanos, and Douglas H. Bartlett*

Center for Marine Biotechnology and Biomedicine, Marine Biology Research Division, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093-0202

Received 21 July 2006/ Accepted 21 November 2006

In the ocean's most extreme depths, pressures of 70 to 110 megapascals prevent the growth of all but the most hyperpiezophilic (pressure-loving) organisms. The physiological adaptations required for growth under these conditions are considered to be substantial. Efforts to determine specific adaptations permitting growth at extreme pressures have thus far focused on relatively few {gamma}-proteobacteria, in part due to the technical difficulties of obtaining piezophilic bacteria in pure culture. Here, we present the molecular phylogenies of several new piezophiles of widely differing geographic origins. Included are results from an analysis of the first deep-trench bacterial isolates recovered from the southern hemisphere (9.9-km depth) and of the first gram-positive piezophilic strains. These new data allowed both phylogenetic and structural 16S rRNA comparisons among deep-ocean trench piezophiles and closely related strains not adapted to high pressure. Our results suggest that (i) the Circumpolar Deep Water acts as repository for hyperpiezophiles and drives their dissemination to deep trenches in the Pacific Ocean and (ii) the occurrence of elongated helices in the 16S rRNA genes increases with the extent of adaptation to growth at elevated pressure. These helix changes are believed to improve ribosome function under deep-sea conditions.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Center for Marine Biotechnology and Biomedicine, Marine Biology Research Division, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093-0202. Phone: (858) 534-5233. Fax: (858) 534-7313. E-mail: dbartlett{at}ucsd.edu.

{triangledown} Published ahead of print on 8 December 2006.

{dagger} Supplemental material for this article may be found at http://aem.asm.org/.

Applied and Environmental Microbiology, February 2007, p. 838-845, Vol. 73, No. 3
0099-2240/07/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/AEM.01726-06
Copyright © 2007, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.



This article has been cited by other articles:

  • Lauro, F. M., Tran, K., Vezzi, A., Vitulo, N., Valle, G., Bartlett, D. H. (2008). Large-Scale Transposon Mutagenesis of Photobacterium profundum SS9 Reveals New Genetic Loci Important for Growth at Low Temperature and High Pressure. J. Bacteriol. 190: 1699-1709 [Abstract] [Full Text]  


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