Project name: Chloroflexus aurantiacus

Description: Chloroflexus aurantiacus. This organism is one of the deepest branching phototrophs, and has some characteristics of both green non-sulfur and purple photosynthetic bacteria. It is the most well studied of the green non-sulfur bacteria, a group that describes a collection of various phototrophs and nonphototrophs. These thermophiles live in hot springs of neutral to high pH and grow in mats, typically as the lowest layer in the mat with cyanobacteria above them, or as filamentous tendrils. The bacterium grows as a photoheterotroph and consumes the organic products the cyanobacteria produce, although it can also be photoautotrophic under anaerobic conditions and chemoorganotrophic under aerobic conditions. Like other green sulfur bacteria, the light-harvesting apparatus exists in chlorosomes, which consists of reaction centers surround by a protein-stabilized glycolipid monolayer, at the inner surface of the cytoplasmic membrane, although the reaction centers are more similar to the type II systems found in cyanobacteria than the type I systems found in green-sulfur bacteria. Carbon is fixed in a completely unique manner, by using the 3-hydroxypropionate pathway. The multicellular filaments this organism produces are capable of gliding motility.

Last updated: 2009-03-20