Ga. Brusseau et al., PHYLOGENETIC ANALYSIS AND DEVELOPMENT OF PROBES FOR DIFFERENTIATING METHYLOTROPHIC BACTERIA, Applied and environmental microbiology, 60(2), 1994, pp. 626-636
Fifteen small-subunit rRNAs from methylotrophic bacteria have been seq
uenced. Comparisons of these sequences with 22 previously published se
quences further defined the phylogenetic relationships among these bac
teria and illustrated the agreement between phylogeny and physiologica
l characteristics of the bacteria. Phylogenetic trees were constructed
with 16S rRNA sequences from methylotrophic bacteria and representati
ve organisms from subdivisions within the class Proteobacteria on the
basis of sequence similarities by using a weighted least-mean-square d
ifference method. The methylotrophs have been separated into coherent
clusters in which bacteria shared physiological characteristics. The c
lusters distinguished bacteria which used either the ribulose monophos
phate or serine pathway for carbon assimilation. In addition, methanot
rophs and methylotrophs which do not utilize methane were found to for
m distinct clusters within these groups. Five new deoxyoligonucleotide
probes were designed, synthesized, labelled with digoxigenin-11-ddUTP
, and tested for the ability to hybridize to RNA extracted from the ba
cteria represented in the unique clusters and for the ability to detec
t RNAs purified from soils enriched for methanotrophs by exposure to a
methane-air atmosphere for one month. The 16S rRNA purified from soil
hybridized to the probe which was complementary to sequences present
in 16S rRNA from serine pathway methanotrophs and hybridized to a less
er extent with a probe complementary to sequences in 16S rRNAs of ribu
lose monophosphate pathway methanotrophs. The nonradioactive detection
system used performed reliably at amounts of RNA from pure cultures a
s small as 10 ng.