Scalindua wagneri

Candidatus Scalindua wagneri
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Bacteria
Division:	Planctomycetes
Class:	Planctomycetia
Order:	Planctomycetales
Family:	Brocadiceae
Genus:	Scalindua
Species:	wagneri
Binomial name
Candidatus Scalindua wagneri Schmid, et al. 2003.

Candidatus Scalindua wagneri is a Gram-negative coccoid-shaped bacterium that was first isolated from a wastewater treatment plant. This bacterium is an obligate anaerobic chemolithotroph that undergoes anaerobic ammonium oxidation (anammox). It can be used in the wastewater treatment industry in nitrogen reactors to remove nitrogenous wastes from wastewater without contributing to fixed nitrogen loss and greenhouse gas emission.

Candidatus Scalindua wagneri is a coccoid-shaped bacterium with a diameter of 1 μm. Like other Planctomycetes, S. wagneri is Gram-negative and does not have peptidoglycan in its cell wall. In addition, the bacterium contains two inner membranes instead of having one inner membrane and one outer membrane that surrounds the cell wall. Some of the near neighbors are other species within the new Scalindua genus, such as Candidatus S. sorokinii and Candidatus S. brodae. Other neighbors include Candidatus Kuenenia stuttgartiensis and Candidatus Brocadia anammoxidans. S. wagneri and its genus share only about 85% similarity with other members in its evolutionary line, which suggests that it is distantly related to other anaerobic ammonium oxidizing (anammox) bacteria.

Markus Schmid from the Strous lab first discovered S. wagneri in a landfill leachate treatment plant located in Pitsea, UK on August 1, 2001. These bacteria doubled in number about every three weeks in laboratory conditions, which made them very difficult to isolate. Therefore, the researchers used 16S rRNA (ribosomal RNA) gene analysis on the biofilm of wastewater samples to detect the presence of these bacteria. They amplified and isolated the 16S rRNA gene from the biofilm using PCR and gel electrophoresis. Then, they cloned the DNA into TOPO vectors. Once the researchers sequenced the DNA, they aligned the 16S rRNA gene sequences to a genome database and found that the sequences are related to the anammox bacteria. One of the sequences showed a 93% similarity to Candidatus Scalindua sorokinii, which suggests that this sequence belonged to a new species within the genus Scalindua and the researchers named it Candidatus Scalindua wagneri after Michael Wagner, a microbial ecologist.

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Wikipedia