''Herminiimonas glaciei'' is a species of ultramicrobacterium in the family

Oxalobacteraceae The Oxalobacteraceae are a family of bacteria, included in the order Burkholderiales. Like all Pseudomonadota, Oxalobacteraceae are Gram-negative Gram-negative bacteria are bacteria that do not retain the crystal violet stain used in the Gra ...

. These small

gram-negative Gram-negative bacteria are bacteria that do not retain the crystal violet stain used in the Gram staining method of bacterial differentiation. They are characterized by their cell envelopes, which are composed of a thin peptidoglycan cell wa ...

cells have a variable number of long flagella at the ends and sides of their rod-shaped bodies. With dimensions of 0.5–0.9 by 0.3–0.4 µm, ''H. glaciei'' is roughly 10 to 50 times smaller than ''

Escherichia coli ''Escherichia coli'' (),Wells, J. C. (2000) Longman Pronunciation Dictionary. Harlow ngland Pearson Education Ltd. also known as ''E. coli'' (), is a Gram-negative, facultative anaerobic, rod-shaped, coliform bacterium of the genus '' Esc ...

''. Discovered in 2009, the species (as strain UMB49^T) was isolated from 120,000 years old glacial ice, deep, from

Greenland Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland i ...

. It was revived after a long-term incubation—seven months of

oxygen Oxygen is the chemical element with the symbol O and atomic number 8. It is a member of the chalcogen group in the periodic table, a highly reactive nonmetal, and an oxidizing agent that readily forms oxides with most elements as ...

-free growth at 2 °C, followed by growth on

agar plate An agar plate is a Petri dish that contains a growth medium solidified with agar, used to culture microorganisms. Sometimes selective compounds are added to influence growth, such as antibiotics. Individual microorganisms placed on the plate wil ...

s at 5 °C for almost five months. DNA sequence analysis suggests that with a sequence similarity of 99.6%, ''H. glaciei'' is most closely related to '' H. saxobsidens'', a species originally isolated from lichen-colonized rock. Loveland-Curtze, head of the team of scientists from Pennsylvania State University who found the species, speculates that it may offer insight into the existence of organisms in extraterrestrial habitats.

Description

''H. glaciei'' cells are small, gram-negative, thin rods, with dimensions of 0.5–0.9 by 0.3–0.4 µm; the average cell has a volume of 0.043 µm³. They have long flagella, either 1 or 2 at either end of the cell, and may also have 1 to 3 more along the sides. Although the original colony pigmentation is brown-purple, regrowth on

s (made using tryptic soy agar with glucose),

colonies In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the '' metropolitan state'' ...

are circular with an entire edge, convex, smooth, and translucent white to tan colored. This species can grow at temperatures between 1–35 °C, with the optimal growth temperature being 30 °C. At this temperature, the bacteria has a doubling time of four hours when grown in tryptic soy broth without glucose. ''H. glaciei'' is resistant to a number of

antibiotics An antibiotic is a type of antimicrobial substance active against bacteria. It is the most important type of antibacterial agent for fighting bacterial infections, and antibiotic medications are widely used in the treatment and prevention o ...

ampicillin Ampicillin is an antibiotic used to prevent and treat a number of bacterial infections, such as respiratory tract infections, urinary tract infections, meningitis, salmonellosis, and endocarditis. It may also be used to prevent group B stre ...

, bacitracin, chloramphenicol,

ciprofloxacin Ciprofloxacin is a fluoroquinolone antibiotic used to treat a number of bacterial infections. This includes bone and joint infections, intra abdominal infections, certain types of infectious diarrhea, respiratory tract infections, skin inf ...

, penicillin,

nalidixic acid Nalidixic acid (tradenames Nevigramon, NegGram, Wintomylon and WIN 18,320) is the first of the synthetic quinolone antibiotics. In a technical sense, it is a naphthyridone, not a quinolone: its ring structure is a 1,8-naphthyridine nucleus that ...

, rifampicin,

streptomycin Streptomycin is an antibiotic medication used to treat a number of bacterial infections, including tuberculosis, ''Mycobacterium avium'' complex, endocarditis, brucellosis, ''Burkholderia'' infection, plague, tularemia, and rat bite fever. F ...

and

vancomycin Vancomycin is a glycopeptide antibiotic medication used to treat a number of bacterial infections. It is recommended intravenously as a treatment for complicated skin infections, bloodstream infections, endocarditis, bone and joint infections, ...

. Its growth is inhibited by the antibiotics gentamicin,

neomycin Neomycin is an aminoglycoside antibiotic that displays bactericidal activity against gram-negative aerobic bacilli and some anaerobic bacilli where resistance has not yet arisen. It is generally not effective against gram-positive bacilli and ...

and

tetracycline Tetracycline, sold under various brand names, is an oral antibiotic in the tetracyclines family of medications, used to treat a number of infections, including acne, cholera, brucellosis, plague, malaria, and syphilis. Common side effects in ...

References

External links

Type strain of ''Herminiimonas glaciei'' at Bac''Dive'' - the Bacterial Diversity Metadatabase
{{DEFAULTSORT:Herminiimonas Glaciei Burkholderiales Bacteria described in 2009 Psychrophiles Antibiotic-resistant bacteria

Description

See also

References

External links