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Updated: Aug 13, 2026

Using Coculture to Detect Chemically Mediated Interspecies Interactions
Published on: October 31, 2013
Cohn's Crenothrix is a filamentous methane oxidizer with an unusual methane monooxygenase
Kilian Stoecker1, Bernd Bendinger, Björn Schöning
1Department für Mikrobielle Okologie, Universität Wien, A-1090 Wien, Austria.
Abstract:
135 years ago Ferdinand Cohn, the founder of bacteriology, microscopically observed a conspicuous filamentous bacterium with a complex life cycle and described it as Crenothrix polyspora. This uncultured bacterium is infamous for mass developments in drinking water systems, but its phylogeny and physiology remained unknown. We show that C. polyspora is a gammaproteobacterium closely related to methanotrophs and capable of oxidizing methane. We discovered that C. polyspora encodes a phylogenetically very unusual particulate methane monooxygenase whose expression is strongly increased in the presence of methane. Our findings demonstrate a previously unrecognized complexity of the evolutionary history and cell biology of methane-oxidizing bacteria.
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