Ward is an Assistant Investigator at The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR), which led the genomic sequencing and conducted the analysis with scientific collaborators at the University of Bergen in Norway.
While noting that "there is a clear need for experimental validation" of the metabolic pathways suggested by the genome, the study's authors suggest that their analysis "deepens our understanding of methanotroph biology, its relationship to global carbon cycles, and its potential for biotechnological applications."
Johan Lillehaug, the Norwegian scientist who oversaw the University of Bergen's role in the project, says the genome analysis found that M. capsulatus has a novel strategy for scavenging copper, an essential element for regulating methane oxidation. "We found that M. capsulatus is a good model for studying how microbes adapt to varying copper concentrations," he says, noting that M. capsulatus uses two separate systems at high and low copper concentrations for oxidizing methane.
Scientists say the organism's potential significance for biotechnology include the use of bacteriophage (viruses that infect bacteria) that have made a home in the genome. Such phages could be exploited to genetically manipulate M. capsulatus to more efficiently produce microbial protein for commercial animal feed.
The study's senior author, TIGR Investigator Jonathan Eisen, says the analysis of M. capsulatus also will help scientists learn more about some methane-fixing bacteria those that live inside of animals such as clams and mussels in deep-sea methane seeps that are extremely difficult to study. Such methane-fixing bacterial symbionts allow their host animals to feed off of the methane collected in seeps.
"The methane-fixing symbionts are very impor
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Contact: Robert Koenig
rkoenig@tigr.org
301-795-7880
The Institute for Genomic Research
20-Sep-2004