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State Mi­crobes

by Elio

Not long ago, I was in­ter­viewed twice (click here and here) by Michelle Nor­ris of Na­tional Pub­lic Radio's All Things Con­sid­ered re­gard­ing the burn­ing is­sue of state mi­crobes. The first in­ter­view was in re­sponse to the news that the state of Wisconsin's State As­sem­bly passed a bill pro­claim­ing Lac­to­coc­cus lac­tis as its state mi­crobe. I opined that this would be a most ap­pro­pri­ate choice, given the role of this bac­terium in mak­ing cheese, a mat­ter of ob­vi­ous im­por­tance to Wis­con­sinites. Alas, the state Sen­ate did not take up the bill, so L. lac­tis will have to wait (per­haps in a lyophilized state) for fu­ture pro­pos­als. Michelle pro­posed that the other states now have the chance to be the first to adopt a state mi­crobe. Lis­ten­ers sent in their nom­i­na­tions, some of which we dis­cussed dur­ing the sec­ond in­ter­view.

Sources: here and here

Men­tion­ing the quest for state mi­crobes to mi­cro­bi­ol­o­gists and non-mi­cro­bi­ol­o­gists alike usu­ally re­sults in a chuckle. Fair enough: in today's world, pre­oc­cu­pa­tion with such os­ten­si­bly triv­ial mat­ters may be friv­o­lous. Still, there could be an ed­u­ca­tional point to this. Kids in each state, when pre­sented with the state mi­crobe, may want to fig­ure out what makes the mi­crobe spe­cial and even learn some­thing about mi­crobes in gen­eral. (Maybe adults, too!)

The in­ter­views were good fun (the kin­ship in the names of our re­spec­tive ac­tiv­i­ties, STC and ATC, was a com­fort­able point of de­par­ture). Michelle was ex­ceed­ingly friendly and help­ful, like­wise her off-the-air col­league Melissa Grey (au­thor of All Cakes Con­sid­ered). Both were ea­ger to delve into mat­ters mi­cro­bial. Each time the in­ter­view lasted some 15 min­utes, from which they se­lected the ma­te­r­ial that was aired. We chat­ted in a free and easy man­ner that I found both re­laxed and pleas­ant.

Here is a list of nom­i­na­tions from NPR lis­ten­ers and read­ers of New Sci­en­tist, as well as some of our own. Per­haps mi­cro­bi­ol­o­gists in each state will find it worth­while to come up with their choices. Those with po­lit­i­cal con­nec­tions to state leg­is­la­tors should pay spe­cial heed. I omit sug­ges­tions of path­o­genic agents (with a cou­ple of ex­cep­tions), on the sup­po­si­tion that state leg­is­la­tures would not take kindly to them.

  • Al­abama: Kare­nia bre­vis, a di­nofla­gel­late, aka the Red Tide Alga. A shoo-in if you think of the Crim­son Tide. (Jenny Rid­ings, New Sci­en­tist)
  • Alaska: The per­mafrost bac­terium Carnobac­terium pleis­to­cenum found in 35,000 year-old ice. (Rowan Hooper, news ed­i­tor, New Sci­en­tist)
  • Ari­zona: (1) Thiobacil­lus fer­roox­i­dans for its role in cop­per leach­ing. Ari­zona is the top cop­per-pro­duc­ing state in the US. (Elio)
  • (2)

Peni­cil­lum

  • Cal­i­for­nia: (1) Sac­cha­romyces cere­visiae, for its im­por­tance in mak­ing wine. (Elio) (Also sug­gested for sev­eral other states)
  • (2) The city of Los An­ge­les got two nom­i­na­tions for a "city mi­crobe:"

Clostrid­ium bot­u­linum,

New Sci­en­tist

  • Florida: (1) Re­tire­ment com­mu­ni­ties in Florida would ap­pre­ci­ate the 250-mil­lion-year-old Lazarus bacil­lus Bacil­lus per­mi­ans. Note that there is far from uni­ver­sal agree­ment about the longevity of this bac­terium. (Rowan Hooper, news ed­i­tor, New Sci­en­tist)
  • (2) The Sun­shine State can share its am­ple sun­light and coastal wa­ters with a pho­to­syn­thetic ma­rine cyanobac­terium, e. g.,

Syne­chococ­cus elon­ga­tus

  • Dis­trict of Co­lum­bia: Cupri­avidus met­al­lidu­rans (for­merly Ral­sto­nia met­al­lidu­rans), the gold min­ing bug that turns sol­u­ble gold into nuggets. They could use it there. See our pre­vi­ous post. (Elio)
  • Hawaii: An­other state claim­ing Lac­to­coc­cus lac­tis, here fer­ment­ing taro into poi. (Merry)
  • In­di­ana: Zy­momonas mo­bilis, a bac­terium that pro­duces ethanol very ef­fi­ciently. Indy 500 cars run on ethanol. (Amoe­baMike, New Sci­en­tist)
  • Iowa: Bradyrhi­zo­bium japon­icum, a ni­tro­gen fix­ing sym­biont of soy­bean plants. Iowa is one of the top soy­bean pro­duc­ers in the US. (Elio)
  • Kansas: MRSA, for il­lus­trat­ing evo­lu­tion in ac­tion. (sev­eral NPR lis­ten­ers)
  • New Jer­sey: (1) Strep­to­myces griseus, the bac­terium that makes strep­to­mycin, a pi­o­neer an­tibi­otic dis­cov­ered at Rut­gers Uni­ver­sity by Sel­man Waxs­man. (Elio)
  • (2) Sewage methanogenic bac­te­ria, for New Jersey's fa­mous marsh­land garbage dumps. (Rowan Hooper, news ed­i­tor,

New Sci­en­tist

  • New Mex­ico: The "in­de­struc­tible bac­terium" Deinococ­cus ra­dio­du­rans that prob­a­bly sur­vived the Trin­ity A bomb test car­ried out in New Mex­ico in 1945. (Rowan Hooper, news ed­i­tor, New Sci­en­tist)
  • Nevada: Home of the neon glow in Las Ve­gas gets the flash­ing light of Vib­rio fis­cheri. (Rowan Hooper, news ed­i­tor, New Sci­en­tist)
  • Rhode Is­land (1) Epu­lop­is­cium fis­chel­soni, the biggest known bac­terium (never mind Thiomar­garita) for the small­est state in the Union. (NPR lis­tener)
  • (2) The nanobac­te­ria (Ed. Note: as­sum­ing they ex­ist). (Rowan Hooper, news ed­i­tor, New Sci­en­tist)
  • Texas: The oil eat­ing Syn­thro­phus may be use­ful for cleanup of oil spills. (Rowan Hooper, news ed­i­tor, New Sci­en­tist)
  • Utah: The salt-lov­ing Haloar­cula for the Great Salt Lake. (Rowan Hooper, news ed­i­tor, New Sci­en­tist)
  • Vir­ginia: The Ep­stein Barr virus or kiss­ing bug be­cause "Vir­ginia is for lovers." (NPR lis­tener)
  • Wash­ing­ton: Here they may ap­pre­ci­ate the rain-mak­ing bac­terium Pseudomonas sy­ringae. (Rowan Hooper, news ed­i­tor, New Sci­en­tist)
  • Wis­con­sin: Lac­to­coc­cus lac­tis, the es­sen­tial cheese-maker. (Wis­con­sin State As­sem­bly)
  • Wyoming: Ther­mus aquati­cus, which was iso­lated from a Yel­low­stone hot spring and went on to make a great liv­ing as the source of the Taq poly­merase. (Elio)

Can you think of oth­ers? Keep them com­ing!

 

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19 Comments
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Chris Condayan
16 years ago

You know too much!
Elio
Hmmm, I would pre­fer to see DC rep­re­sented by Geobac­ter met­al­lire­ducens, the first Geobac­ter species iso­lated from the Po­tomac River, just down stream from the Nation's Capi­tol in 1987.

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Epicanis
16 years ago

Two more Cal­i­for­nia of­fer­ings:
Don't for­get Lac­to­bacil­lus san­fran­cis­cen­sis ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Taxonomy/Browser/wwwtax.cgi?id=1625 )which gives "San Fran­cisco" sour­dough part of its dis­tinc­tive fla­vor.
And of course Oeno­coc­cus oeni ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Taxonomy/Browser/wwwtax.cgi?id=1247 ) for its role in mal­o­lac­tic fer­men­ta­tion to make wines more mel­low.

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Paul Orwin
16 years ago

I think for Nevada the more ap­pro­pri­ate lu­mi­nes­cent bac­terium is Pho­torhab­dus lu­mi­nescens, since it com­bines the bright lights with hid­den dan­ger.
Per­haps Bor­re­lia burgdor­feri for Con­necti­cut — in honor of the dis­cov­ery of Lyme bor­re­lia­sis.
I'm go­ing to try to think of some more, rather than prepar­ing for talk­ing at SCAS to­mor­row — hope to get a chance to meet you there, Elio!

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Nathan Myers
16 years ago

Penn­syl­va­nia should claim the po­lio virus, be­cause it was at (lately) pitt.edu that Salk de­vel­oped the vac­cines against it.

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Heather Anne
16 years ago

I would have to con­cur with this fellow's post for MAINE:
http://blog.ibe.org/?p=93
37) An abun­dant seed pop­u­la­tion in bot­tom sed­i­ments has set the stage for a sig­nif­i­cant bloom of the toxic alga Alexan­drium fundyense in the gulf of Maine.
Since I'm an oceanog­ra­pher, this ma­rine mi­crobe gets my vote!

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Arhada
16 years ago

She­wanella onei­den­sis for New York, be­cause it was first iso­lated from Lake Oneida in New York, and it's very ver­sa­tile, like New York­ers.

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Cesar Sanchez
16 years ago

It's dif­fi­cult for me to think of a sin­gle mi­crobe rep­re­sent­ing my home coun­try, Spain, so I would rather fo­cus on my home re­gion, As­turias (in NW Spain, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asturias ).
For As­turias, I pro­pose Peni­cil­lium roque­forti, the fun­gus that gives a nice blue colour to Cabrales cheese (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cabrales_cheese ). This is an ar­ti­san strong cheese made in the moun­tains, and a very pop­u­lar sou­venir among tourists vis­it­ing the re­gion. Some­times tourists buy Cabrales cheese be­fore tast­ing it (big mis­take!), only to re­al­ize ‑back at home- that they can­not tol­er­ate its strong aroma and flavour...

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Doug Eveleigh
16 years ago

Dear Elio,
All good minds think alike.
Joan Ben­nett pro­posed the con­cept of a state mi­crobe back when she was pres­i­dent of ASM. Some takes on it but at that time it did not fly. Thus it is great to see this up front again.
We had also been look­ing at the con­cept — Strep griseus for strep­to­mycin was also our first choice, butwe have oth­ers that are de­lec­table and home grown — i.e. NJ cul­tured.
Azo­to­bac­ter vinelandii (Ja­cob Lip­man) from Vineland NJ (cited in 1904 NJ Ag School re­port).
Thiobacil­lus thioox­i­dans (Waks­man and Joffe 1922).
Strep­to­myces griseus for strep­to­mycin
Strep­to­myces rut­gersen­sis a nice ring for a state name. 1916 Waks­man and Cur­tis.
Strep­to­myces novo­cae­sareae 1916 Waks­man and Cur­tis. = New Jer­sey.
Strep­to­myces lip­manii — Ja­cob Lip­man as founder of Amer­i­can soil mi­cro­bi­ol­ogy
Strep­to­myces fra­diae — Women's stud­ies — af­ter Sel­man Waks­man mother
or
S. bo­bili af­ter Waksman's wife (nick­name)
and as Elio says, keep them com­ing: the sheer fun a mi­cro­bial menagerie.
Whose was is that sug­gested the species tar­ryanus?

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ishwor
16 years ago

var­i­ous di­ver­sity of Strep­to­myces spp are found in soils of nepal.So,i will go for Strep­to­myces spp.
we need more mol­e­c­u­lar re­searches on them so tht we­can hav an­tibi­otics and oth­ers from them

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Manuel Sanchez
16 years ago

My two cents
Chicago: Cyanobac­te­ria (blue bac­te­ria) is the can­di­date as "city mi­crobe" for ob­vi­ous rea­sons.
Vir­ginia: Wol­bachia pip­i­en­tis. The bac­te­ria that causes parteno­gen­e­sis al­low­ing re­pro­duc­tion of vir­gins
Col­orado: Halo­quad­ra­tum wals­byi, has the same shape and its colour is pink-red ("col­orado" in span­ish means "red").
Re­gards

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Elio Schaechter
16 years ago

If Cal­i­for­nia does not choose Sac­cha­romyces cere­visiae, this should be a choice for Mis­souri [brew­ing in­dus­try]. A sec­ond choice for Mis­souri could be just YEAST.
Abe Eisen­stark

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Mark O. Martin
16 years ago

Not to quib­ble, but I would think that Deinococ­cus ra­dio­du­rans would be a good can­di­date for Washington's State Microbe...given the his­tory and re­al­ity of the Han­ford Nu­clear Reser­va­tion.

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Edward Quinto
16 years ago

Hello ASM,
For the Philip­pines with nat­ural re­sources rich in bio­di­ver­sity, I have many mi­crobes to nom­i­nate as the Country's Na­tional Mi­crobe from al­gae to bac­te­ria to fungi but I guess two in­dige­nous bac­te­ria have made their mark in sci­en­tific lit­er­a­ture. One is Strep­to­myces fil­ip­inen­sis pro­ducer of an an­ti­fun­gal an­tibi­otic, an im­muno­sup­pres­sant and a spe­cific his­to­chem­i­cal stain for cho­les­terol. The other more pop­u­lar mi­crobe is Sac­cha­ropolyspora ery­thrae pro­ducer of the Eli Lily ban­ner an­tibi­otic – Ery­thromycin. I also opted to choose Vib­rio fis­cheri for the Philip­pines but af­ter hav­ing gone through the blogsite I re­al­ized that the mi­crobe will in­deed be more ap­pro­pri­ate for Nevada where brightly shin­ing Las Ve­gas is lo­cated. Hey, there's still Vib­rio har­veyi, a cousin of Vib­rio fis­cheri and equally as brightly bi­o­lu­mi­nes­cent and cre­ator of the "Milky Sea" but it causes big prob­lems here lo­cally with its lu­mi­nous vib­rio­sis in­fec­tion on prawns. I think this idea on "State Mi­crobe" or in my case a "Na­tional Mi­crobe" is just great and has fi­nally come of age. If here in the Philip­pines, we have a Na­tional An­i­mal, a Na­tional Bird, a Na­tional Flower, etc., why not a Na­tional Mi­crobe! Cheers! " Blue Light Green World".
Elio replies:
Your sug­ges­tions point to the pur­pose of the ex­er­cise, which ul­ti­mately is ed­u­ca­tion to­wards en­hanc­ing mi­cro­bial lit­er­acy. You have taught us a lot al­ready and, should there be a na­tional mi­crobe, that might well re­sult in greater in­ter­est in the mi­cro­bial world by chil­dren and adults not only in the Philip­pines but else­where.
Many thanks,
Elio

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Helen
16 years ago

those das­tardly Wall­stree­to­coc­cus banker­alis would make per­fect New York State mi­crobes

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Chris M.
16 years ago

I would sug­gest go­ing with Pho­torhab­dus lu­mi­nescens for Nevada and us­ing Vib­rio fis­cheri (or V. harveyi)for South Car­olina. South Carolina's state flag is a pal­metto tree and a cres­cent moon and is a real trade­mark of the state. Imag­ine re­plac­ing the moon with the cres­cent-shaped vib­rio light­ing up the night as a sym­bol for State Mi­crobe Day! The beaches of Charleston, Beau­fort, and Myr­tle Beach are all ma­jor draws for tourists (South Carolina's lead­ing in­dus­try) and are likely places to en­counter a vib­rio. We could teach kids about ben­e­fi­cial bac­te­ria with this sym­bi­otic mi­crobe (and as an anal­ogy to SC's sym­bi­otic re­la­tion­ship with tourists), as well as how some of its cousins (V. cholerae) could be dan­ger­ous in the event of a hur­ri­cane.

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Michael Teuber, Professor emeritus of Food Microbiology ETH Zurich
16 years ago

Dear Elio, I ap­pre­ci­ate your ef­forts to have Lac­to­coc­cus lac­tis as a state mi­crobe for Wisconsin.It would also fit very well for Hol­land or Ger­many or even Eu­rope with their many Lac­to­coc­cus-fer­mented cheeses, sour milk and sour cream. But it is more im­por­tant to bring the proper prod­ucts to the com­sumers with­out to many bac­te­rio­phage prob­lems. So, don't be to much dis­ap­pointed and just have a piece of nice cheese and a glass of good wine in­stead. Cheers

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greg
16 years ago

It seems to me that a state or any gov­ern­ment body would be more re­cep­tive to a nam­ing a mi­crobe as "It's Of­fi­cial" one if you could show how the masses could en­joy it. In the post by Epi­ca­nis, Lac­to­bacil­lus san­fran­cis­cen­sis is ref­er­enced, but by it's self it's just a mi­crobe, add Can­dida hu­milis, some flour and wa­ter and you pro­duce the unique "stuff" that IS San Fran­cisco Sour­dough. There are wild yeasts every­where and in sour­dough cul­tur­ing they all de­velop a sym­bi­otic re­la­tion­ship with friendly bac­te­ria. Why should San Fran­cisco be the ONLY place for sour­dough bread?

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Mike
13 years ago

I also nom­i­nate Lac­to­bacil­lus San­fran­scis­cen­sis for Cal­i­for­nia. Mis­souri should get the yeast. But what state should have ace­to­bac­ter?

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Jyothi Mohan
12 years ago

Can you please tell me if there are any in­stances of mi­crobes be­ing hon­ored out­side amer­ica? Is Wis­con­sin the first state to do so in the world?
Elio re­pleis:
I am not aware of such a thing. I would hope that other coun­tries also con­sider do­ing it.
Thanks for point­ing this out.

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