Ammonia oxidization is the first and a rate-limiting step of nitrification, which is often a critical process in nitrogen removal from estuarine and coastal environments. To clarify the correlation of environmental conditions with the distribution of ammonia oxidizers in organic matter-rich coastal sediments, ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA) and bacteria (AOB) ammonia monooxygenase alpha subunit...

Ammonia-oxidizing bacteria and ammonia-oxidizing archaea are commonly found together in soils, yet the factors influencing their relative distribution and activity remain unclear. We examined archaeal and bacterial amoA gene distribution, and used a novel bioassay to assess archaeal and bacterial contributions to nitrification potentials in soils spanning a range of land uses (forest, pasture, ...

In order to investigate the effects of temperature on the abundances and community compositions of ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA) and bacteria (AOB), lake microcosms were constructed and incubated at 15°C, 25°C and 35°C for 40 days, respectively. Temperature exhibited different effects on the abundance and diversity of archaeal and bacterial amoA gene. The elevated temperature increased the ab...

Despite the ubiquity of ammonium in geothermal environments and the thermodynamic favorability of aerobic ammonia oxidation, thermophilic ammonia-oxidizing microorganisms belonging to the crenarchaeota kingdom have only recently been described. In this study, we analyzed microbial mats and surface sediments from 21 hot spring samples (pH 3.4 to 9.0; temperature, 41 to 86 degrees C) from the Uni...

To determine the abundance and distribution of bacterial and archaeal ammonia oxidizers in alpine and permafrost soils, 12 soils at altitudes of 4000-6550 m above sea level (m a.s.l.) were collected from the northern slope of the Mount Everest (Tibetan Plateau), where the permanent snow line is at 5800-6000 m a.s.l. Communities were characterized by real-time PCR and clone sequencing by targeti...

Ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA) play an important role in nitrification and many studies exploit their amoA genes as marker for their diversity and abundance. We present an archaeal amoA consensus phylogeny based on all publicly available sequences (status June 2010) and provide evidence for the diversification of AOA into four previously recognized clusters and one newly identified major clust...

We report the outcome of 135 knees with anteromedial osteoarthritis in which the Oxford meniscal-bearing unicompartmental arthroplasty was inserted in a district general hospital by a single surgeon. All the knees had an intact anterior cruciate ligament, a correctable varus deformity and the lateral compartment was uninvolved or had only minor osteoarthritis. The mean follow-up was 5.82 years ...

Seasonal change in the vertical distribution of ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA) and ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) in temperate forest soil was examined from March 2008 to January 2009 by quantitative PCR of the amoA genes. Abundances of AOA amoA genes (ranging from 2.0×10(8) to 1.2×10(9) copies per gram dry soil) were significantly higher than those of AOB amoA genes (1.9×10(5) to 1.7×10(7) ...

Archaea play an important role in nitrification and are, thus, inextricably linked to the global carbon and nitrogen cycles. Since the initial discovery of an ammonia monooxygenase α-subunit (amoA) gene associated with an archaeal metagenomic fragment, archaeal amoA sequences have been detected in a wide variety of nitrifying environments. Recent sequencing efforts have revealed extensive diver...