Methanogenic Archaea in Humans and Other Vertebrates
The presence of methane in biological samples had been detected many years ago and it was believed that the gas could be either of chemical or microbial origin. Detection of methane-producing microbes (methanogensmethanogens) in samples from animals inten
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Contents 1 Objective and Scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 2 Methanogens in Humans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102 3 Methanogens in Nonhuman Vertebrates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103 4 Diversity of Methanogens in Vertebrates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 5 Diversity at the Subspecies Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 6 Methanogens in Vertebrates and Atmospheric Methane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109 7 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Abstract The presence of methane in biological samples had been detected many years ago and it was believed that the gas could be either of chemical or microbial origin. Detection of methane-producing microbes (methanogens) in samples from animals intensified since the last part of the previous century, going from culturalphysiological characterization and isolation of microbes to further characterization of the isolates at the biochemical, immunological, molecular biologic-genetic, and phylogenetic levels. In this Chapter, we report about methanogens identified at least at the genus level in samples from humans and other vertebrates, focusing on findings at the species levels. The data show that although relatively few vertebrate species have been examined, methanogens are most likely widespread among them and quite diverse if examined at the subspecies level.
E. Conway de Macario (*) and A.J. Macario Department of Microbiology and Immunology, School of Medicine, and IMET, University of Maryland, Columbus Center, 701 East Pratt Street, Baltimore, MD 21202, USA e‐mail: [email protected]
J.H.P. Hackstein (ed.), (Endo)symbiotic Methanogenic Archaea, Microbiology Monographs 19, DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-13615-3_7, # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2010
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E. Conway de Macario and A.J.L. Macario
1 Objective and Scope The work presented in this Chapter was aimed at examining from published reports and our own experience the range of vertebrates that have been found to carry methanogens and the diversity of methanogens uncovered. This review extends and updates previous ones published by us and others (Conway de Macario et al. 1987; Eckburg et al. 2003; Conway de Macario and Macario 2009, 2010) and focuses on the work in which the microbes have been identified at least at the
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