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While liquid biopreparations for water and soil bioremediation are convenient and economically attractive, microbial survival under standard environmental conditions is poor. Microbial immobilization is a common and efficient method to preserve high viable cell titers. We tested the effect of three new materials on the survival of various hydrocarbon oxidizers during long-term storage. The suspended (planktonic) cultures stored under the same conditions served as a control when assessing the viability of immobilized cultures after long-term storage. The cells of Acinetobacter seifertii, Pseudomonas extremaustralis, P. aeruginosa, Rhodococcus erythropolis, and Dietzia maris grown with microcapsules (MCs) of chitosan-modified polyurea (represented by crumpled spheres, 40–200 µm in diameter) attached abundantly to the MC surface. After several months of storage with MCs, CFU titers were two to five times higher than in the control. Cultivation of P. aeruginosa and R. erythropolis with polylactide (PLA) MCs (represented by slightly crumpled thin-walled spheres 25–100 µm in size) resulted in the formation of thick biofilms on MC surface. After 30-day storage with these MCs, CFU titers of R. erytropolis were up to one thousand times higher than in the control. In the presence of PLA MCs, the respiration rates of both cultures were five to eight times higher than in the control without MCs. The reasons of the better survival of immobilized cells are being discussed. After storage for up to 12 months, CFU titers of bacteria (R. erythropolis, A. seifertii, P. aeruginosa, P. extremaustralis) and yeasts (Yarrovia lipolytica) immobilized in the gel based on silanol derivatives of humic substances were ten to one hundred times higher than in the control. After 4-month storage, hydrocarbon degradation by the stabilized cultures began earlier and was faster and more complete than in the control. The tested materials may be used to extend the storage time for the preparations of biotechnologically important bacteria and for application for petroleum bioremediation.

The discovery of ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA) of the phylum Thaumarchaeota and the high abundance of archaeal ammonia monooxygenase subunit A encoding gene sequences in many environments have extended our perception of nitrifying microbial communities. Moreover, AOA are the only aerobic ammonia oxidizers known to be active in geothermal environments. Molecular data indicate that in many globally distributed terrestrial high-temperature habits a thaumarchaeotal lineage within the Nitrosopumilus cluster (also called "marine" group I.1a) thrives, but these microbes have neither been isolated from these systems nor functionally characterized in situ yet. In this study, we report on the enrichment and genomic characterization of a representative of this lineage from a thermal spring in Kamchatka. This thaumarchaeote, provisionally classified as "Candidatus Nitrosotenuis uzonensis", is a moderately thermophilic, non-halophilic, chemolithoautotrophic ammonia oxidizer. The nearly complete genome sequence (assembled into a single scaffold) of this AOA confirmed the presence of the typical thaumarchaeotal pathways for ammonia oxidation and carbon fixation, and indicated its ability to produce coenzyme F420 and to chemotactically react to its environment. Interestingly, like members of the genus Nitrosoarchaeum, "Candidatus N. uzonensis" also possesses a putative artubulin-encoding gene. Genome comparisons to related AOA with available genome sequences confirmed that the newly cultured AOA has an average nucleotide identity far below the species threshold and revealed a substantial degree of genomic plasticity with unique genomic regions in "Ca. N. uzonensis", which potentially include genetic determinants of ecological niche differentiation.