Pyrobaculum islandicum
   
   
 

Photo by Robert Huber (from Huber, Kristjansson, Stetter, Arch Microbiol 149:95-101 (1987)). Bar equal 1um (micron).

Hyperthermophilic Fe(III) reduction has been most intensively studied in P. islandicum (Childers and Lovley, 2001), significant because it is one of the most plausible energy metabolisms for the last common ancestor of all modern life. This species is also of great interest to geochemists and geobiologists given the abundance and ubiquity of matching rRNA signatures in geothermal environments. 

Information about other groups in the research community working on the microbe.

Derek Lovley's group (Department of Microbiology, Morrill Science Center, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 01003, USA) has worked on elucidation of Fe(III) reduction mechanisms in P. islandicum.

T. Ohshima's group (Department of Biological Science and Technology, Faculty of Engineering, The University of Tokushima, Tokushima 770-8506, Japan) has characterized several enzymes of P. islandicum.

Hans Truper & Christiane Dahl's group (Institut fur Mikrobiologie und Biotechnologie, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universitat Bonn, Bonn D-53115, Germany) have extensively characterized the dissimilatory sulfite reductase from P. islandicum.

Relevant literature references.

Childers SE, Lovley DR.  Differences in Fe(III) reduction in the hyperthermophilic archaeon, Pyrobaculum islandicum, versus mesophilic Fe(III)-reducing bacteria. FEMS Microbiol Lett. 2001 Feb 20;195(2):253-8. 

Bhuiya MW, Sakuraba H, Ohshima T, Imagawa T, Katunuma N, Tsuge H.  The first crystal structure of hyperthermostable NAD-dependent glutamate dehydrogenase from Pyrobaculum islandicum. J Mol Biol. 2005 Jan 14;345(2):325-37. 

Dahl C, Molitor M, Truper HG.  Siroheme-sulfite reductase-type protein from Pyrobaculum islandicum. Methods Enzymol. 2001;331:410-9.