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A Toolkit to Enable Hydrocarbon Conversion in Aqueous Environments
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Potential for aerobic hydrocarbon oxidation in archaea.

Andy O Leu1, Ben J Woodcroft2, Simon J McIlroy2

  • 1Centre for Microbiome Research, School of Biomedical Sciences, Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Translational Research Institute, Woolloongabba, QLD, Australia. leua@qut.edu.au.

Nature Communications
|October 16, 2025
PubMed
Summary

Archaea may now possess the ability to oxidize hydrocarbons aerobically, a trait previously only seen in bacteria. This discovery in the novel order Candidatus 'Aerarchaeales' opens new avenues in microbial metabolism research.

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