Isolation and characterization of a novel aerobic and hyperthermophilic archaeon isolated from a hot spring in Japan. Desulfurococcaceae archaeon AG1

Our project is isolation of novel hyperthermophilic aerobic archaea because of its few examples. Strain AG1 is isolated from Atagawa hot spring, Shizuoka prefecture, Japan. Phylogenetic analysis of 16S rRNA gene showed that strain AG1 belonged to archaeal family Desulfurococcales and most closely related to anaerobic archaea Ignisphaera aggregans with similarity of 95%. Since no terrestrial aerobic hyperthermophilic archaea in family Desulfurococcales has been reported, we proposed the strain AG1 as a representative of a novel genus. Strain AG1 grow optimally 90-95 degrees, pH 6.5, salinity 0. The goal of this study is to reveal characteristics of strain AG1 and analytics of genome.