1887

Abstract

The ability to utilize dinitrogen as a nitrogen source is an important phenotypic trait in most currently known methanotrophic bacteria (MB). This trait is especially important for acidophilic MB, which inhabit acidic oligotrophic environments, highly depleted in available nitrogen compounds. Phylogenetically, acidophilic MB are most closely related to heterotrophic dinitrogen-fixing bacteria of the genus . To further explore the phylogenetic linkage between these metabolically different organisms, the sequences of and gene fragments from acidophilic MB of the genera and , and from representatives of , were determined. For reference, and sequences were also obtained from some type II MB of the alphaproteobacterial / group and from gammaproteobacterial type I MB. The trees constructed for the inferred amino acid sequences of and were highly congruent. The phylogenetic relationships among MB in the NifH and NifD trees also agreed well with the corresponding 16S rRNA-based phylogeny, except for two distinctive features. First, different methods used for phylogenetic analysis grouped the NifH and NifD sequences of strains of the gammaproteobacterial MB within a clade mainly characterized by , including acidophilic MB and type II MB of the / group. From this and other genomic data from Bath, it is proposed that an ancient event of lateral gene transfer was responsible for this aberrant branching. Second, the identity values of NifH and NifD sequences between B2 and representatives of were clearly higher (98·5 and 96·6 %, respectively) than would be expected from their 16S rRNA-based relationships. Possibly, these two bacteria originated from a common acidophilic dinitrogen-fixing ancestor, and were subject to similar evolutionary pressure with regard to nitrogen acquisition. This interpretation is corroborated by the observation that, in contrast to most other diazotrophs, B2 and spp. are capable of active growth on nitrogen-free media under fully aerobic conditions.

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2004-05-01
2024-03-28
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