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Molecular Ecology of Methanotrophs

  • Conference paper
Microbiology of Atmospheric Trace Gases

Part of the book series: NATO ASI Series ((ASII,volume 39))

Abstract

Methane oxidizing bacteria (methanotrophs) are unique in growing with methane as their sole source of carbon and energy. They do not grow on multi-carbon compounds, but some can also utilize methanol as a growth substrate. These unique organisms appear to be ubiquitous in the natural environment and have been isolated from a wide variety of soils, sediments and freshwater samples (Whittenbury et al. 1970; Bowman et al. 1993) . There are also marine representatives (reviewed in Murrell and Holmes, 1995). They are all strictly aerobic, gram negative bacteria that grow on a minimal medium and methane and can be classified into two groups on the basis of their intracytoplasmic membranes, pathways of formaldehyde assimilation and 16S rRNA sequence. The five genera Methylomonas, Methylobacter, Methylococcus, Methylocystis and Methylosinus originally proposed by Whittenbury et al. (1970) have largely remained unaltered (Bowman et al. 1993). Type I methanotrophs Methylobacter and Methylomonas are related to bacteria in the γ-subdivision of the Proteobacteria, contain bundles of intracytoplasmic membranes and utilize the ribulose monophosphate (RuMP) pathway for formaldehyde assimilation into biomass.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological Sciences, University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL, England

    J. Colin Murrell, Andrew J. Holmes, Ian R. McDonald & Elizabeth M. Kenna

Authors
  1. J. Colin Murrell
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  2. Andrew J. Holmes
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  3. Ian R. McDonald
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  4. Elizabeth M. Kenna
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological Sciences, University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL, UK

    J. Colin Murrell

  2. Institute of Education, University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL, UK

    Donovan P. Kelly

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© 1996 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Murrell, J.C., Holmes, A.J., McDonald, I.R., Kenna, E.M. (1996). Molecular Ecology of Methanotrophs. In: Murrell, J.C., Kelly, D.P. (eds) Microbiology of Atmospheric Trace Gases. NATO ASI Series, vol 39. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-61096-7_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-61096-7_9

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-64693-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-61096-7

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