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1 Graduate School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba 305-8572, Japan
2 Master's Program in Biosystem Studies, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba 305-8572, Japan
3 Institute for Marine Resources and Environment, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Tsukuba 305-8567, Japan
4 Research Institute of Biological Resources, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Tsukuba 305-8566, Japan
5 Division of Chemistry, Center for Natural Science, Kitasato University, Sagamihara 228-8555, Japan
6 Department of Earth and Planetary Science, Faculty of Science, Kyushu University, Fukuoka 812-8581, Japan
7 Department of Earth & Planetary Science, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan
8 Noda Institute for Scientific Research, Noda 278-0037, Japan
Correspondence
Tomohiko Kuwabara
kuwabara{at}biol.tsukuba.ac.jp
A cell-fusing hyperthermophilic archaeon was isolated from hydrothermal fluid obtained from Suiyo Seamount of the Izu-Bonin Arc. The isolate, TS1T, is an irregular coccus, usually 0·5–2 µm in diameter and motile with a polar tuft of flagella. Cells in the exponential phase of growth fused at room temperature in the presence of DNA-intercalating dye to become as large as 5 µm in diameter. Fused cells showed dark spots that moved along in the cytoplasm. Large cells with a similar appearance were also observed upon culture at 87 °C, suggesting the occurrence of similar cell fusions during growth. Transmission electron microscopy revealed that cells in the exponential phase possessed a thin and electron-lucent cell envelope that could be lost subsequently during culture. The fragile cell envelope must be related to cell fusion. The cells grew at 57–90 °C, pH 5·2–8·7 and at NaCl concentrations of 1·5–4·5 %, with the optima being 87 °C, pH 6·5 and 2·5 % NaCl. The isolate was an anaerobic chemo-organotroph that grew on either yeast extract or tryptone as the sole growth substrate. The genomic DNA G+C content was 53·9 mol%. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequencing indicated that the isolate was closely related to Thermococcus species. However, no significant DNA–DNA hybridization was observed between genomic DNA of strain TS1T and phylogenetically related Thermococcus species. We propose that isolate TS1T represents a novel species, Thermococcus coalescens sp. nov., with the name reflecting the cell fusion activity observed in the strain. The type strain is TS1T (=JCM 12540T=DSM 16538T).
The GenBank/EMBL/DDBJ accession number for the 16S rRNA gene sequence of Thermococcus coalescens sp. nov. TS1T is AB107767.
Further images of Thermococcus coalescens sp. nov., the results of X-ray fluorescence spectrometry, growth curves and a table detailing DNA–DNA hybridization results are available as supplementary material in IJSEM Online.
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