Sphaerochaeta coccoides
| Sphaerochaeta coccoides | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Systematics | ||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Sphaerochaeta coccoides | ||||||||||||
| ( Dröge et al. 2006) Abt, Göker, Kyrpides & Klenk 2012 |
Sphaerochaeta coccoides (referred to as Spirochaeta coccoides until 2012) is a bacterium from the group of spirochetes . It lives as a symbiote in the intestines of termites . Unlike most other types of spirochetes, which have a corkscrew-like appearance and actively move, Sphaerochaeta coccoides is spherical ( coccal-shaped ) and immobile.
The symbiote Sphaerochaeta coccoides was found in the intestines of the American termite Neotermes castaneus . With its unusual metabolism, it supports its host in the task of breaking down wood. The bacterium mainly uses multiple and double sugars, so-called oligosaccharides and disaccharides, from the breakdown of wood . The acetic acid formed from this is then absorbed and used by the termite.
Scientists at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz discovered and described the bacterium . So far it was known from other intestinal spirochetes that they can operate the remineralization of the molecular nitrogen in the air or the formation of acetic acid from carbon dioxide and hydrogen . The discovery and cultivation of this bacterium has shown that intestinal spirochetes can also be directly involved in the multi-stage wood breakdown.
literature
- Stefan Dröge, Jürgen Fröhlich, Renate Radek and Helmut König: Spirochaeta coccoides sp. nov., a novel coccoid spirochete from the hindgut of the termite Neotermes castaneus . Applied and Environmental Microbiology, 72 , 2006, pp. 392-397
- Birte Abt, Cliff Han u. a .: Complete genome sequence of the termite hindgut bacterium Spirochaeta coccoides type strain (SPN1T), reclassification in the genus Sphaerochaeta as Sphaerochaeta coccoides comb. nov. and emendations of the family Spirochaetaceae and the genus Sphaerochaeta. In: Standards in Genomic Sciences. Volume 6, No. 2, May 2012, pp. 194-209, ISSN 1944-3277 . doi : 10.4056 / sigs.2796069 .