Talmudic Question #21
by Elio
Unlike many bacteria, which undergo undergo fancy morphological development (spores, hyphae, prosthecae, etc.), archaea do not. Why do you suppose this is?
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Ah, Elio and Merry....can we *really* say that? What percentage of archaeans are cultivable?
But I am no expert in matters archaeal.
It's certainly true that archaeans are able to enter into symbiotic associations with protists—yet also do not appear (YET!) to cause disease.
The Third Domain is mysterious, indeed.
They don't? Actually, I disagree.
Archael "hami"[1] don't count as "fancy morphological development"? Surely that's at least as interesting as prosthecae! Nor the odd three-layer "plug" that makes the ends of Methanospirillum hungatei filaments "Gram-positive" while the rest of the filament has no Gram reaction[2]? Surely this is at least as interesting as hyphae!
Methinks we have a case of selection bias — I think there isn't enough attention paid to non-pathogenic organisms, especially archaea, which although they seem to have a lot of unique attributes ripe for research, they are almost[3] totally unknown to be involved with disease. I've said it before[4] and I'll say it again (if only to be provocative): I think the field of Microbiology needs to grow up and move out of Medicine's basement. (I mean the field as a whole, not individual microbiologists.)
Sheesh! First you belittle the fine phylum of firmicutes[5], and now this! What are you, some kind of Gram-negative-eubacterial supremacist?!?!?
(Aw, crud, all that effort to put in links to all of my references, and the blog rejects HTML....here they are in order of appearance: )
[1]http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?holding=&db=PubMed&cmd=search&term=15813730
[2]http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?holding=&db=PubMed&cmd=search&term=1702777
[3]http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/101/16/6176
[4]http://www.bigroom.org/wordpress/?p=58
[5]http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/schaechter/~3/108118185/talmudic_questi_1.html
How do archaea get about anyway? If the "obligate anaerobes" can disperse through the atmosphere and aerobic surface waters, why do they need fancy defenses?
I am just a baffled hydrogeologist, occasional "bioremedialist", composter, intrigued by Permian live cells, methanogens wherever the chemistry permits.
In response to SMC's comment...
Elio is away, otherwise I'm sure he would respond in greater detail to your insightful remarks. I'm delighted that you spoke up on behalf of the archaea, and especially that you mentioned the hami — the subject of an STC posting scheduled for 10/4. Thanks, also, for taking the time to painstakingly enter your references for everyone's benefit.
Related to Mark O. Martin's comment, the majority of the most well studied Archaea are thermophiles and a relative lack (if there is such a thing) of fancy morphology might be conducive to survival in these conditions. The first of the non-extremophilic Archaea have been isolated and it'll be interesting to see the morphological diversity amongst them.