Anaerobic oxidation of short-chain hydrocarbons by marine sulphate-reducing bacteria

Olaf Kniemeyer, Florin Musat, Stefan M. Sievert, Katrin Knittel, Heinz Wilkes, Martin Blumenberg, Walter Michaelis, Arno Classen, Carsten Bolm, Samantha B. Joye and Friedrich Widdel ()
Additional contact information
Olaf Kniemeyer: Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, Celsiusstraße 1, D-28359 Bremen, Germany
Florin Musat: Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, Celsiusstraße 1, D-28359 Bremen, Germany
Stefan M. Sievert: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, Massachusetts 02536, USA
Katrin Knittel: Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, Celsiusstraße 1, D-28359 Bremen, Germany
Heinz Wilkes: GeoForschungsZentrum Potsdam, Telegrafenberg, D-14473 Potsdam, Germany
Martin Blumenberg: Institute of Biogeochemistry and Marine Chemistry, Bundesstraße 55, University of Hamburg
Walter Michaelis: Institute of Biogeochemistry and Marine Chemistry, Bundesstraße 55, University of Hamburg
Arno Classen: Institute for Organic Chemistry, RWTH Aachen University
Carsten Bolm: Institute for Organic Chemistry, RWTH Aachen University
Samantha B. Joye: University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia 30602-3636, USA
Friedrich Widdel: Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, Celsiusstraße 1, D-28359 Bremen, Germany

Nature, 2007, vol. 449, issue 7164, 898-901

Abstract: Natural gas guzzlers There has been an increasing interest in organisms thriving at marine gas seeps, in particular microbes that utilize methane. Surprisingly, there seems to have been comparatively little work done on the fate of the other abundant hydrocarbons in natural gases — ethane, propane and butane. Now sediments collected from hydrocarbon seep areas in the Gulf of Mexico and the Gulf of California have yielded microbial cultures that utilize propane and butane under anoxic conditions similar to those prevailing in gas reservoirs. These biochemically unusual bacteria may be responsible for the observed alteration of gases in seeps and other gas reservoirs.

Date: 2007
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature06200 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:449:y:2007:i:7164:d:10.1038_nature06200

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature06200

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().