Re: News: Microbes beneath sea floor genetically distinct
- From: dk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (DK)
- Date: Fri, 1 Aug 2008 13:22:01 -0400 (EDT)
In article <g6d0s1$22jb$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Lorentz <drosen0000@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Jul 22, 2:33 pm, "Robert Karl Stonjek" <rston...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
The researchers, who included Biddle; House; Stephan C. Schuster, associateI am not sure that Archae should be considered as distinct from
professor; and Jean E. Brenchley, professor, biochemistry and molecular
biology, Penn State; and Sorel Fitz-Gibbon, assistant research molecular
biologist at the Center for Astrobiology, UCLA, found that a large
percentage of the microbes were Archaea, single-celled organisms that look
like Bacteria but are different on the metabolic and genetic levels. The
percentage of Archaea increases with depth so that at 164 feet below the sea
floor, perhaps 90 percent of the microbes are Archaea. The total number of
organisms decreases with depth, but there are lots of cells, perhaps as many
as 1,600 million cells in each cubic inch.
prokaryotes, the other superkingdom of bacteria.
They may very well be.
Sure, their ribosome
DNA is distinct from the other bacteria. However, the ribosome DNA is
inherited separately from their chromosomal DNA, and from their
plasmid DNA. The chromosomal DNA of the prokaryote bacteria and
archaebacteria are probably not so distinct. Lateral gene transfer
probably effects the chromosomal DNA separately from the ribosomal
DNA, and may even be different from the plasmid DNA.
There is another fundamental difference, the one that is, IMHO,
very important: their lipids are completely different (L- instead of
D-glycerol and branched isoprenes instead of non-branched
fatty acids).
DK
.
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