Thermotoga

Thermotoga
Outline of a Thermotoga maritima section showing the "toga"
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Bacteria
Phylum: Thermotogota
Class: Thermotogae
Order: Thermotogales
Family: Thermotogaceae
Genus: Thermotoga
Huber et al. 1986
Type species
Thermotoga maritima
Huber et al. 1986
Species[1]

Thermotoga is a genus of the phylum Thermotogota. Members of Thermotoga are hyperthermophilic bacteria whose cell is wrapped in a unique sheath-like outer membrane, called a "toga".

The members of the phylum stain Gram-negative as they possess a thin peptidoglycan in between two lipid bilayers, albeit both peculiar.[2] The peptidoglycan is unusual as the crosslink is not only meso-diaminopimelate as occurs in Pseudomonadota, but D-lysine.[NB 1][3]

The species are anaerobes with varying degrees of oxygen tolerance. They are capable of reducing elemental sulphur (S0) to hydrogen sulphide.[2]

Whether thermophily is an innovation of the lineage or an ancestral trait is unclear and cannot be determined.
The genome of Thermotoga maritima was sequenced in 1999, revealing several genes of archaeal origin, possibly allowing its thermophilic adaptation.[4] The CG (cytosine-guanine) content of T. maritima is 46.2%;[2] most thermophiles in fact have high CG content; this has led to the speculation that CG content may be a non-essential consequence to thermophily and not the driver towards thermophily.[5][6]

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference LPSN was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ a b c Cite error: The named reference description was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Boniface, A.; Parquet, C.; Arthur, M.; Mengin-Lecreulx, D.; Blanot, D. (2009). "The Elucidation of the Structure of Thermotoga maritima Peptidoglycan Reveals Two Novel Types of Cross-link". Journal of Biological Chemistry. 284 (33): 21856–21862. doi:10.1074/jbc.M109.034363. PMC 2755910. PMID 19542229.
  4. ^ Fraser, C. M.; Clayton, K. E.; Gill, R. A.; Gwinn, S. R.; Dodson, M. L.; Haft, R. J.; Hickey, D. H.; Peterson, E. K.; Nelson, J. D.; Ketchum, W. C.; McDonald, K. A.; Utterback, L.; Malek, T. R.; Linher, J. A.; Garrett, K. D.; Stewart, M. M.; Cotton, A. M.; Pratt, M. D.; Phillips, M. S.; Richardson, C. A.; Heidelberg, D.; Sutton, J.; Fleischmann, G. G.; Eisen, R. D.; White, J. A.; Salzberg, O.; Smith, S. L.; Venter, H. O.; Fraser, J. C. (1999). "Evidence for lateral gene transfer between Archaea and bacteria from genome sequence of Thermotoga maritima". Nature. 399 (6734): 323–329. Bibcode:1999Natur.399..323N. doi:10.1038/20601. PMID 10360571.
  5. ^ Pasamontes, A.; Garcia-Vallve, S. (2006). "Use of a multi-way method to analyze the amino acid composition of a conserved group of orthologous proteins in prokaryotes". BMC Bioinformatics. 7: 257. doi:10.1186/1471-2105-7-257. PMC 1489954. PMID 16709240.
  6. ^ Puigbò, P.; Pasamontes, A.; Garcia-Vallve, S. (2008). "Gaining and losing the thermophilic adaptation in prokaryotes". Trends in Genetics. 24 (1): 10–14. doi:10.1016/j.tig.2007.10.005. PMID 18054113.


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