This study evaluated the effects of three commercial dispersants (Finasol OSR 52, Slickgone NS, Superdispersant 25) and biosurfactants (rhamnolipid, trehalolipid, sophorolipid) in crude-oil seawater microcosms. We analysed crucial early bacterial response (1 3 days). In contrast, most analyses miss this key period instead focus on later time points after oil dispersant addition. By focusing sta...

The psychrophile Clostridium sp. strain 69 contains a thermolabile triose phosphate isomerase which is inactivated rapidly in vitro and in vivo at 32 C.

Mean macromolecular dynamics was quantified in vivo by neutron scattering in psychrophile, mesophile, thermophile and hyperthermophile bacteria. Root mean square atomic fluctuation amplitudes determining macromolecular flexibility were found to be similar for each organism at its physiological temperature ( approximately 1 A in the 0.1 ns timescale). Effective force constants determining the me...

References 1 Deming, J.W. (2002) Psychrophiles and polar regions. Curr. Opin. Microbiol. 5, 301–309 2 Deming, J.W. and Eicken, H. (2004) Life in ice. In Planets and Life: The Emerging Science of Astrobiology (Baross, J.A. and Sullivan, W., eds), Cambridge University Press (in press) 3 Bowman, J.P. et al. (1997) Diversity and association of psychrophilic bacteria in antarctic sea ice. Appl. Envi...

What we previously thought of as insurmountable physical and chemical barriers to life, we now see as yet another niche harbouring 'extremophiles'. Extremophiles and their macromolecules had to develop molecular mechanisms of adaptation to extreme physico-chemical conditions. Using neutron spectroscopy, we have demonstrated that molecular dynamics represents one of these molecular mechanisms of...

Planococcus antarcticus DSM 14505 is a psychrophile bacterium that was isolated from cyanobacterial mat samples, originally collected from ponds in McMurdo, Antarctica. This orange-pigmented bacterium grows at 4°C and may possess interesting enzymatic activities at low temperatures. Here we report the first genomic sequence of P. antarcticus DSM 14505.

The water activity and pH ranges for growth of Glaciecola punicea (a psychrophile) were extended when this organism was grown at suboptimal rather than optimal temperatures. No such extension was observed for Gelidibacter sp. strain IC158 (a psychrotolerant bacterium) at analogous temperatures. Salinity and pH may be primary physicochemical parameters controlling bacterial community development...

Alpha-Amylase from the antarctic psychrophile Altermonas haloplanktis is synthesized at 0 +/- 2 degrees C by the wild strain. This heat-labile alpha-amylase folds correctly when overexpressed in Escherichia coli, providing the culture temperature is sufficiently low to avoid irreversible denaturation. In the described expression system, a compromise between enzyme stability and E. coli growth r...

Wintertime measurements near Barrow, Alaska, showed that bacteria near the surface of first-year sea ice and in overlying saline snow experience more extreme temperatures and salinities, and wider fluctuations in both parameters, than bacteria deeper in the ice. To examine impacts of such conditions on bacterial survival, two Arctic isolates with different environmental tolerances were subjecte...