MOTIVATION
At the phylum level, Bacteria and Archaea comprise 186 major lineages. Yet cultivable representatives are available for only about 30% of these phyla. Most of the remainder are known primarily from genomes reconstructed directly from environmental samples, leaving their cellular and physiological properties largely unexplored.
These uncultivated lineages are phylogenetically distant from familiar cultured microorganisms. That evolutionary distance raises a compelling possibility: their cell architecture, metabolic capacities, and ways of life may differ fundamentally from what microbiology has regarded as typical.
My research has focused on bringing these microbial unknowns into culture and using living cells to discover biological features that genome sequences alone cannot reveal.
Genome Taxonomy Database ↗FEATURED BACTERIA
Atribacter laminatus
After long-term cultivation from a natural-gas field, we isolated a bacterium representing a previously uncultivated phylum. Despite being a prokaryote, it possesses an intracellular membrane that encloses the genomic DNA; cryo-electron tomography revealed three distinct membrane systems. The finding challenges conventional assumptions about prokaryotic cell organization.
Fidelibacter multiformis
This bacterium was obtained after approximately four years of cultivation. It lacks key genes required to synthesize peptidoglycan from scratch and instead takes up muropeptides released by neighboring bacteria to build its own cell wall. This dependency enables a distinctive energy-saving lifestyle.
Minisyncoccota / Patescibacteriota
These ultra-small bacteria grow attached to the surface of host bacteria. Nine years of cultivation and isolation work has revealed an unusual ectoparasitic strategy, including the use of host-derived RNA. The current findings are available as a preprint.
