11 Deep-sea Thermococcales and their Genetic Elements: Plasmids and Viruses

摘要: Publisher Summary The first, and now the most numerous, organisms isolated from deep-sea hydrothermal vents belong to order Thermococcales, within Euryarchaeota in domain Archaea. They are general neutrophilic, strictly anaerobic hyperthermophilic peptide sugar fermenters, that can reduce elemental sulfur hydrogen sulfide (Palaeococcus may use ferric iron as electron acceptor), they rather easy handle grow laboratory, probably because oxygen-resistant, if exposure occurs at room temperature or below. Despite existence of a huge collection Thermococcales strains, very few plasmidic elements reported so far euryarchaeotes. first is small (3.5 kb) cryptic plasmid found high copy number marine species ‘‘P. abyssi’’ strain GE5. This plasmid, pGT5, stable multicopy (25–30 copies per chromosome) be cultures different growth phase range 75 up 105oC. Among important phylum Euryarchaeota, only one virus completely characterized date. Screening enrichment has revealed an unexpected diversity among VLPs (virus-like particles) environments.