PNNL

Abstract

DNA from low biodiversity, 3 to 40 myr old, fracture water collected at 2.8 km depth in a South African gold mine was sequenced and assembled into a single, complete genome. This uncultured Gram-positive bacterium, Candidatus Desulforudis audaxviator, is prevalent at depths > 1.5 km in the Witwatersrand Basin and its near-clonal population comprises > 99.9% of the microorganisms inhabiting the fluid phase of this particular fracture. Only 0.0014% of the 2.35 Mb exhibit polymorphism, which is almost 60 fold less than the 0.08% rate found for the unusually homogeneous Leptospirillum group II population present in a single biofilm sample from the Iron Mt. acid mine drainage community. Its genome indicates a motile, sporulating, sulfate (SO42-) reducing, chemoautotrophic thermophile that is capable of fixing its own nitrogen and carbon using machinery shared with archaea. Candidatus Desulforudis audaxviator appears capable of an independent lifestyle well suited to long-term isolation from the photosphere deep within Earth’s crust and offers the first example of a natural ecosystem that has its biological component entirely encoded within a single genome. The homogeneity of this genome is compatible with an ecosystem model in which relatively few generations have occurred since the emergence or isolation of this population. Given the age of the fracture water this would suggest a remarkably slow doubling time.