Where is Alcanivorax in Borkumensis?
Alcanivorax borkumensis (A. borkumensis) is a Gram-negative, rod-shaped hydrocarbonoclastic (“oil-degrading”) bacterium. It thrives in halophilic, aerobic environments and is found in the upper layers of freshwater or marine environments such as the Mediterranean Sea, Pacific Ocean and Arctic Sea [4, 8].
What is Borkumensis?
Alcanivorax borkumensis is a rod-shaped bacteria that relies on oil to provide it with energy. Relatively rare in unpolluted seas it quickly comes to dominate the marine microbial ecosystem after an oil spill, and it can be found throughout the world’s oceans.
What is the function of Alcanivorax bacteria?
Alcanivorax borkumensis is a cosmopolitan marine bacterium that uses oil hydrocarbons as its exclusive source of carbon and energy.
Is Alcanivorax borkumensis harmful to humans?
There have been no reports on the bacterium being a pathogen, and since vendors that provide this strain label it as a Biosafety Level 1 organism, it is most probably not harmful to humans, but of course, this is something you should confirm with the vendors when you do purchase the strain.
What is the meaning of Alcanivorax?
Alcanivorax. Alcanivorax borkumensis is an alkane-degrading marine bacterium which naturally propagates and becomes predominant in crude-oil-containing seawater when nitrogen and phosphorus nutrients are supplemented.
Why is Alcanivorax borkumensis important?
Of all the Alcanivorax species and other oil-degrading microbes, Alcanivorax borkumensis is one of the most important worldwide due to the fact it produces a wide variety of very efficient oil-degrading enzymes. borkumensis could provide a useful tool for bioremediation of oil spills.
Is Alcanivorax borkumensis pathogenic?
But however widespread and serious the damage may be, the solution could be microscopic — Alcanivorax borkumensis — a bacterium that feeds on hydrocarbons. borkumensis, a non-pathogenic marine bacterium piqued his curiosity.
What does Alcanivorax borkumensis produce?
Recently, a new class of glycolipids, glucose lipids, produced by Alcanivorax borkumensis SK2 (Yakimov et al., 1998), has been described (Abraham et al., 1998). The strain uses aliphatic hydrocarbons as its main carbon source for growth and produces an anionic glucose lipid biosurfactant.
When was Alcanivorax discovered?
1998
The most closely studied of these rod-shaped bacteria, Alcanivorax borkumensis, was first identified in 1998 near the Isle of Borkum in the North Sea. It has several efficient enzymes that break down a variety of the components of crude oil called alkanes.
What happens to bacteria after it consumes oil?
“When bacteria consume oil and gas, they use up oxygen and release carbon dioxide, just as humans do when we breathe,” graduate research assistant Mengran Du at Texas A&M University said in a statement. “When bacteria die and decompose, that uses up still more oxygen.
What do oil eating bacteria oxidize?
Bacteria can break down oil to carbon dioxide and water. The tens of thousands of different compounds that make up oil can only be biodegraded by communities of microorganisms acting in concert. Some bacteria can degrade several hydrocarbons or a class of hydrocarbons.
What bacteria eats oil?
There are species of marine bacteria in several families, including Marinobacter, Oceanospiralles, Pseudomonas, and Alkanivorax, that can eat compounds from petroleum as part of their diet.