Staphylothermus marinus ATCC 43588 is a strict anaerobe, hyperthermophile and dependent on elemental sulfur.

Staphylothermus marinus is a marine hyperthermophile, isolated from geothermally heated sediments and from a "black smoker" on the ocean floor.   The optimum temperature for growth is 85°C in minimal medium and 92°C in rich medium.   It is a member of the Archaea, belonging to the phylum Crenarchaeota which is poorly represented in genome sequence projects.   Elemental sulfur is absolutely required for growth and is converted to hydrogen sulfide as a waste product.   A complex nutrient source such as yeast extract, peptone, or meat extract is also necessary for growth.

S. marinus has an unusual morphology.   At low nutrient concentrations the cell diameter varies from 0.5-1.0 m m and large grape-like clusters of up to 100 cells are formed, while at high nutrient concentrations giant cells with diameters up to 15 m m predominate.   The cell wall also has an unusual structure composed of a glycoprotein complex named tetrabrachion, which is stable at high temperatures and resistant to chemical treatments that usually denature proteins.   Tetrabrachion is composed of a stalk attached to the membrane at one end and with four arms projecting perpendicularly from the other end.   The arms interact with those of other tetrabrachion subunits to form a latticework covering the cell.

S. marinus belongs to the order Desulfurococcales as does Aeropyrum pernix , whose genome sequence has been determined.   Sequencing of S. marinus will make comparative studies of these two organisms possible.   Both organisms are hyperthermophiles that grow on complex nutrient sources, but while S. marinus is a strict anaerobe requiring sulfur for growth, A. pernix is a strict aerobe and does not require sulfur compounds.

Research groups working on S. marinus :

Wolfgang Baumeister's group at the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry in Martinsried, Germany has determined the composition and overall structure of the unusual cell wall complex tetrabrachion and has also studied an unusual phosphoenolpyruvate synthase that forms a large multimeric complex.   Richard Kammerer's group at the University of Basel has determined the crystal structure of part of the stalk of tetrabrachion.   Kesen Ma at the University of Waterloo, Canada, has studied the sulfur metabolism of S. marinus including enzymes that may be important.

References:

Cicicopol, C., Peters, J., Lupas, A., Cejka, Z., Müller, S. A., Golbik, R., Pfeifer, G., Lilie, H., Engel, A., and Baumeister, W.   1999.   Novel molecular architecture of the multimeric archaeal PEP-synthase homologue (MAPS) from Staphylothermus marinus .   J. Mol. Biol. 290, 347-361.

Fiala, G., Stetter, K. O, Jannasch, H. W., Langworthy, T. A., and Madon, J.   1986.   Staphylothermus marinus sp. nov. represents a novel genus of extremely thermophilic submarine heterotrophic archaebacteria growing up to 98°C.   System. Appl. Microbiol. 8, 106-113.

Hao, X. and Ma, K.   2003.   Minimal sulfur requirement for growth and sulfur-dependent metabolism of the hyperthermophilic archaeon Staphylothermus marinus .   Archaea 1, 191-197.

Peters, J., Nitsch, M., Kühlmorgen, B., Golbik, R., Lupas, A., Kellermann, J., Engelhardt, H., Pfander, J.-P., Müller, S., Goldie, K., Engel, A., Stetter, K.-O., and Baumeister, W.   1995.   Tetrabrachion: a filamentous archaebacterial surface protein assembly of unusual structure and extreme stability.   J. Mol. Biol. 245, 385-401.

Stetefeld, J., Jenny, M., Schulthess, T., Landwehr, R., Engel, J., and Kammerer, R. A.   2000.   Crystal structure of a naturally occurring parallel right-handed coiled coil tetramer.   Nat. Struct. Biol. 7, 772-776.