In the strangest places

“[A] mind forever Voyaging through strange seas of Thought, alone.” -- William Wordsworth (Major English Romantic Poet. 1770-1850)

The search for desulfurization related research leads to some of the strangest places. Example … geothermal fluids contains exotic microorganisms which thrive on sulfur in extreme environments. Here is the abstract of a paper delivered at a recent conference …

Goldschmidt Conference Abstracts 2010
Microbially mediated sulfur cycling in chemotrophic geothermal systems of Yellowstone National Park
Z.J. JAY, M.A. KOZUBAL, J. FOUR COLORS, R.E. MACUR AND W.P. INSKEEP
Thermal Biology Institute and Department of Land Resources and Environmental Sciences, Montana State Univ., Bozeman, MT 59717, USA (*correspondence binskeep@montana.edu)
Sulfur exists in multiple electronic states and chemical
forms, and plays a pivotal role in both catabolic and anabolic metabolism in prokaryotes. Elemental sulfur (solid phase) and reduced aqueous species (e.g. sulfide, polysulfides, polythionates, thiosulfate) may serve as both electron donors and acceptors for thermophilic microorganisms in geothermal systems of Yellowstone National Park (YNP). Prokaryotes have evolved to exploit the energetically favorable oxidation of dissolved sulfide (DS) to elemental S, thiosulfate, or sulfate, as well as the reduction of elemental S, polysulfides or thiosulfate to DS. Although numerous microbial electron transfer reactions involving sulfur have been suggested and identified, metagenomic analysis of geothermal microbial communities provides direct information regarding the metabolic potential of indigenous populations to carry out reactions central to sulfur cycling. This study combines metagenomic sequencing, geochemical and bioinformatic analyses, and microbiological techniques to identify processes controlling sulfur oxidation-reduction in geochemically diverse (>70° C, pH ~2-7), sulfur-dominated systems across YNP. Proteins involved in sulfur oxidation-reduction in known extremophiles were used to identify homologs in assembled, metagenome sequence using reciprocal BLAST. Identified amino acid sequences were then phylogenetically and structurally analyzed using bioinformatic techniques to identify specific organisms involved in sulfur cycling and characterize the potential function of these proteins across geochemical gradients. Amplification of genes and mRNA transcripts involved in sulfur oxidation-reduction in representative isolates from these communities and from field sites suggest possible mechanisms of microbial sulfur cycling. The oxidation and or reduction of sulfur is extremely dependent on the availability of dissolved oxygen (DO) as a terminal electron acceptor, while microbial populations in anoxic systems can potentially reduce elemental S or polysulfides back to DS. The convergence of phylogenetic and functional information from metagenome sequence of YNP environments provides a foundation for understanding the central role of sulfur in the metabolism of deeply-rooted thermophilic bacteria and archaea.
Source: www.goldschmidt2010.org/abstracts/finalPDFs/A461.pdf

This resulted from Googling® “geothermal sulfur 2010.”

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