Thermofilum pendens
A Microbial Biorealm page on the genus Thermofilum pendens
Classification
Higher order taxa
Archaea; Crenarchaeota; Thermoprotei; Thermoproteales; Thermofilaceae [Others may be used. Use NCBI link to find]
Species
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NCBI: Taxonomy |
Thermofilum pendens, Thermofilum pendens Hrk 5
Description and significance
Thermofilum pendens was first isolated from a solfataric hot spring in Iceland in the early 1980s (1). Since its discovery, T. pendens have also been isolated in solfatara environments. Thus, this archeabacteria can sustain life in a hot and slightly acidic environment making it a hyperthermophile and acidophile, or a thermoacidophile (2). Its optimum growth conditions are 85-90 degree C with a pH of 5-6 and 0.1 – 2% salinity (3, 7). Being an archea, T. pendens has the ability to provide heat resistance enzymes which can be applied in biotechnology. Furthermore, T. pendens is important to the evolutionary process because it the deepest branching lineage to the Eukaryote domain (6). According to a parsimonious phylogenetic tree for 16S rRNA, T. pendens is the out-group of the Crenarchaeota making it the closest evolutionary branch to the Eurakyota domain (7,9). Hence, newly sequenced organisms are compared to T. pendens’ genomes.
Genome structure
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Cell structure and metabolism
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Ecology
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Pathology
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Application to Biotechnology
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Current Research
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References
Edited by student of Rachel Larsen
