Prepping gene libraries
Hot Water Wildlife
Thermus Aquaticus may be the star of the story , but Yellowstone pools hold many more microbes of interest :
Going from park to pipette , a lab tech at Diversa in La Jolla builds a genetic library of useful genes from dozens of Yellowstone hot springs specimens .
from the environment , without having the extra step of pure-culturing microbes in a lab , like Brock had done with Taq . “ Another Scripps graduate , Ed DeLong , PhD ’ 86 , contributed to the discovery that 99 % of microbes in environmental samples could not be grown in pure culture ,” Stein says . “ Yet if a majority of our drugs came from that 1 % that could be cultivated , imagine the potential in the vast majority of microbes that cannot be grown .”
Stein ’ s team took samples from Yellowstone with a loose idea of what they were looking for , mostly enzymes that may have industrial applications . But they were also extracting all kinds of environmental DNA and screening for any enzymatic activity , open to discovering possibilities they didn ’ t expect . “ We found the enzyme phytase , for instance ,” he recalls , “ which can be used in livestock feed to help break down phytic acid . Normally , that acid sequesters nutrients in grains and makes them inaccessible . But a thermostable enzyme could survive the feed extrusion temperatures and release those nutrients .
“ So much of what we found was unexpected ,” he continues . “ And that can be a common theme when working in these areas — a preconceived notion of what should be there can often be an impediment to understanding what you might actually find .”
As for what might yet be found through bioprospecting , the proverbial toe has only been dipped into that pool — in Yellowstone and beyond . The value of such natural resources is great and well worth protecting , Lindstrom holds : “ To think that Taq was inadvertently preserved for so long without knowing its potential , and then it opens up a whole world of discovery .” His book can be read as an homage to such discovery , a salute to the thermophile and an appreciation for being able to serve our natural wonders , be they magnificent lands and animals or microscopic species . “ I ’ m just a regular guy who got an amazing education ,” he says . “ It ’ s served me well , and it ’ s served Yellowstone , too .”
David Gelfand , PhD ’ 70 , still consults on PCR in his retirement in Oakland , Calif ., with Ellen Daniell , PhD ’ 73 . Robert Lindstrom ’ 73 retired from the park service and wrote Laboratory Yellowstone , available on Amazon . He lives near the park and has restored a log cabin for rentals . He can be reached at : blindstrom @ wyellowstone . com Jeff Stein , PhD ’ 91 , is president and CEO of Cidara Therapeutics , a San Diego biotechnology company .
Photos : Jill Scarson
Thermoanaerobacterium thermosulfurigenes is a producer of amylase , used in the food and beverage industry to break down starch . It has potential in brewing and starch processing .
Thermoanaerobacterium xylanolyticum is named for its growth on xylan , or the cell wall of plants . Its enzymes break that structure down , which could be applied to the pulp and paper industry .
And the newly identified
Marsarchaeota is of great interest to astrobiologists : Found in iron-rich , low-oxygen areas , it may be similar to the kinds of life someday found on Mars . Yellowstone has even become a NASA training ground for identifying fossil evidence of organisms on extraterrestrial volcanoes .
TRITONMAG . COM 29