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Applied and Environmental Microbiology, September 1999, p. 3843-3849, Vol. 65, No. 9
0099-2240/99/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1999, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

Distribution and Diversity of Sulfur-Oxidizing Thiomicrospira spp. at a Shallow-Water Hydrothermal Vent in the Aegean Sea (Milos, Greece)

Thorsten Brinkhoff,1,dagger Stefan M. Sievert,2 Jan Kuever,2 and Gerard Muyzer1,*

Molecular Ecology Group1 and Department of Microbiology,2 Max-Planck-Institute for Marine Microbiology, D-28359 Bremen, Germany

Received 21 December 1998/Accepted 9 June 1999

A shallow-water hydrothermal vent system in the Aegean Sea close to the island of Milos (Greece) was chosen to study the diversity and distribution of the chemolithoautotrophic sulfur-oxidizing bacterium Thiomicrospira. Cell numbers in samples from different regions around a solitary vent decreased toward the center of the vent (horizontal distribution), as well as with depth (vertical distribution), corresponding to an increase in temperature (from ca. 25 to 60°C) and a decrease in pH (from ca. pH 7 to 5). Thiomicrospira was one of the most abundant culturable sulfur oxidizers and was even dominant in one region. Phylogenetic analysis of Thiomicrospira spp. present in the highest most-probable-number (MPN) dilutions revealed that most of the obtained sequences grouped in two new closely related clusters within the Thiomicrospira branch. Two different new isolates, i.e., Milos-T1 and Milos-T2, were obtained from high-dilution (10-5) enrichments. Phylogenetic analysis indicated that isolate Milos-T1 is related to the recently described Thiomicrospira kuenenii and Hydrogenovibrio marinus, whereas isolate Milos-T2 grouped with the MPN sequences of cluster 2. The predominance of strain Milos-T2 was indicated by its identification in several environmental samples by hybridization analysis of denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) patterns and by sequencing of one of the corresponding bands, i.e., ML-1, from the DGGE gel. The results shown in this paper support earlier indications that Thiomicrospira species are important members of hydrothermal vent communities.


* Corresponding author. Present address: Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, P.O. Box 59, NL-1790 AB Den Burg, The Netherlands. Phone: 31-222-369-521. Fax: 31-222-319-674. E-mail: gmuyzer{at}nioz.nl.

dagger Present address: Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment, Carl von Ossietzky Universität, D-26111 Oldenburg, Germany.


Applied and Environmental Microbiology, September 1999, p. 3843-3849, Vol. 65, No. 9
0099-2240/99/$04.00+0
Copyright © 1999, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.



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