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Concept
Thermus aquaticus
Summary
Thermus aquaticus is a species of bacteria that can tolerate high temperatures, one of several thermophilic bacteria that belong to the Deinococcota phylum. It is the source of the heat-resistant enzyme Taq DNA polymerase, one of the most important enzymes in molecular biology because of its use in the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) DNA amplification technique.
When studies of biological organisms in hot springs began in the 1960s, scientists thought that the life of thermophilic bacteria could not be sustained in temperatures above about . Soon, however, it was discovered that many bacteria in different springs not only survived, but also thrived in higher temperatures. In 1969, Thomas D. Brock and Hudson Freeze of Indiana University reported a new species of thermophilic bacteria which they named Thermus aquaticus. The bacterium was first isolated from Mushroom Spring in the Lower Geyser Basin of Yellowstone National Park, which is near the major Great Fountain Geyser and White Dome Geyser, and has since been found in similar thermal habitats around the world.
T. aquaticus shows best growth at 65–70 °C (149–158 °F), but can survive at temperatures of 50–80 °C (122–176 °F). It primarily scavenges for protein from its environment as is evidenced by the large number of extracellular and intracellular proteases and peptidases as well as transport proteins for amino acids and oligopeptides across its cell membrane. This bacterium is a chemotroph—it performs chemosynthesis to obtain food. However, since its range of temperature overlaps somewhat with that of the photosynthetic cyanobacteria that share its ideal environment, it is sometimes found living jointly with its neighbors, obtaining energy for growth from their photosynthesis. T. aquaticus normally respires aerobically but one of its strains, Thermus aquaticus Y51MC23, is able to be grown anaerobically.
The genetic material of T. aquaticus consists of one chromosome and four plasmids, and its complete genome sequencing revealed CRISPR genes at numerous loci.
Official source
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