Colorless sulfur oxidizing bacteria comprise an important part of sulfur cycle in nature and hold significant value for biotechnological applications such as, increasing soil fertility, reduction of environmental pollution by biologically oxidizing toxic sulfides present in waste waters from different industries and sewage, leaching of economically important metals from poor ores. Present artic...

Annual change in the density of sulfur-oxidizing microorganisms on sandstone was enumerated to know the effects on the deterioration of stone materials of the Angkor monuments in Cambodia. Samples were obtained from total 12 stations at the Angkor Wat, Bayon, and Phnom Krom temples between 1998 and 2007. Sulfur-oxidizing microorganisms enumerated in a mineral salts medium supplemented with elem...

In the purple sulfur bacterium Allochromatium vinosum, thiosulfate oxidation is strictly dependent on the presence of three periplasmic Sox proteins encoded by the soxBXAK and soxYZ genes. It is also well documented that proteins encoded in the dissimilatory sulfite reductase (dsr) operon, dsrABEFHCMKLJOPNRS, are essential for the oxidation of sulfur that is stored intracellularly as an obligat...

Acidithiobacillus ferrooxidans is a Gram-negative bacterium that obtains energy by oxidizing Fe(2+) or reduced sulfur compounds. This bacterium contributes to the formation of acid mine drainage (AMD). This study determined whether walnut shell powder inhibits the growth of A. ferrooxidans. First, the effects of walnut shell powder on Fe(2+) oxidization and H⁺ production were evaluated. Second,...

Many bituminous coal mine effluents contain, along with other ions, high concentrations of ferrous iron. This is brought into solution by sulfuric acid produced by the oxidation of sulfuritic material, possibly iron sulfides in part, occurring with bituminous coal (Leathen et al., 1952). The ferrous iron is oxidized by bacteria to the ferric state at a more rapid rate than can be accounted for ...

Thioautotrophic endosymbionts in the Domain Bacteria mediate key sulfur transformations in marine reducing environments. However, the molecular pathways underlying symbiont metabolism and the extent to which these pathways are expressed in situ are poorly characterized for almost all symbioses. This is largely due to the difficulty of culturing symbionts apart from their hosts. Here, we use pyr...

Thioalkalivibrio sp. K90mix is an obligately chemolithoautotrophic, natronophilic sulfur-oxidizing bacterium (SOxB) belonging to the family Ectothiorhodospiraceae within the Gammaproteobacteria. The strain was isolated from a mixture of sediment samples obtained from different soda lakes located in the Kulunda Steppe (Altai, Russia) based on its extreme potassium carbonate tolerance as an enric...

The symbiosis between the giant vestimentiferan tubeworm Riftia pachyptila and an intracellular sulfur-oxidizing bacterium still fascinates researchers over 20 years after its discovery. This association, the first between a marine invertebrate and a chemoautotroph to be described, remains the best studied of the symbioses found at sulfide-rich hydrothermal vents. In the decade following the in...