The Genus Thermus and Related Microorganisms

Abstract

Bacteria of the genus Thermus have been isolated from many natural and artificial thermal environments throughout the world. The first strains of the type species Thermus aquaticus were isolated from neutral and alkaline hot springs in Yellowstone National Park, USA (Brock and Freeze, 1969). Since then, strains have also been isolated from Yellowstone Park (Munster et al., 1986), and from other terrestrial hot springs in Iceland (Cometta et al., 1982b; Hudson et al., 1987a; Kristjansson and Alfredsson, 1983; Pask-Hughes and Williams, 1977), New Zealand (Hudson et al., 1986, 1987b), and Continental Portugal and the Azores Islands (Prado et al., 1988; Santos et al., 1989). In Japan, early isolates were named “Flavobacterium thermophilum” (Oshima and Imahori, 1971), and then renamed “Thermus thermophilus” (Oshima and Imahori, 1974). Other isolates have been given invalid species names (Saiki et al., 1972; Taguchi et al., 1982). In addition to terrestrial thermal environments, strains of Thermus have also been isolated from shallow marine thermal vents off Iceland (Kristjansson et al., 1986).