July 26
Washington - Yellowstone National Park has yielded a new marvel - an unusual bacterium that converts light to energy.
The newly discovered type has "a new kind of photosynthesis. It uses the same kind of machinery, but has the parts in a different arrangement."
The find is going to be important for unravelling the history of photosynthesis, in determining how microbes efficiently harvest energy.
Discovery of the microbe, named Candidatus Chloracidobacterium thermophilum.
"Finding a previously unknown, chlorophyll-producing microbe is the discovery of a lifetime.
Yellowstone is home to many types of heat-loving bacteria and scientists have studied it for years in search of new organisms that may be useful in biotechnology or medicine.
The researchers discovered the bacterium living in the same hot springs where the microbe Thermus aquaticus had been found previously.
The mats of microbes give the Yellowstone hot springs a variety of colours including yellow, orange, red, brown and green.
The researchers said the new bacterium has light-harvesting antennae known as chlorosomes, which contain about 250,000 chlorophylls each. It is the first aerobic microbe known to make chlorosomes.
Judging from their genetic sequences, the closest relatives of Cab. thermophilum are found around Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone and hot springs in Tibet and Thailand.
go