Dp. Kelly et al., CONFIRMATION THAT THIOBACILLUS-HALOPHILUS AND THIOBACILLUS-HYDROTHERMALIS ARE DISTINCT SPECIES WITHIN THE GAMMA-SUBCLASS OF THE PROTEOBACTERIA, Archives of microbiology, 170(2), 1998, pp. 138-140
Thiobacillus halophilus and Thiobacillus hydrothermalis share 98.7% si
milarity in 16S rRNA sequence, possess similar gross DNA composition (
64.2 and 67.4 mol% G+C values, respectively), and have similar physiol
ogical properties. While this might have indicated that they were stra
ins of a single species, DNA-DNA hybridization between the type strain
s of the two species showed only 59% hybridization, indicating the org
anisms to be different at the species level. Thiobacillus neapolitanus
is the phylogenetically nearest neighbour of T. halophilus and T. hyd
rothermalis (91.6-92.1% similarity in 16S rRNA sequence) and is the on
ly other Thiobacillus in the gamma-subclass of the Proteobacteria that
can be regarded as exclusively related to these two species. The 16S
rRNA gene sequences of these three species are so different from those
of the other thiobacilli in the gamma-subclass that they justify reco
gnition as a distinct phyletic group. Their comparative properties are
summarized.