A methanotrophic bacterium to enable direct methane capture for climate mitigation

We report here a methanotroph, Methylotuvimicrobium buryatense 5GB1C, that consumes methane at 500ppm at rates several times higher than any previously published. Analyses of bioreactor-based performance and RNAseq based transcriptomics suggest that this superior ability to utilize low methane is based at least in part on an extremely low non-growth associated maintenance energy and on a 5-fold higher methane specific affinity than previous reports. Overall design: M. buryatense 5GB1C cultures were grown with 500 ppm or 1000 ppm methane at steady state. Specific growth rates were 0.009 and 0.02 h-1, respectively. RNA samples were collected after three-generation growth.