Methanosarcinales


Methanosarcinales is an order of Archaea in the class Methanomicrobia, phylum Methanobacteriota. The order Methanosarcinales contains both methanogenic and methanotrophic lineages, although the latter have so far no pure culture representatives. Methanotrophic lineages of the order Methanosarcinales were initially abbreviated as ANME to distinguich from aerobic methanotrophic bacteria. Currently, those lineages receive their own names such as Ca. Methanoperedens, Ca. Methanocomedens, Ca.Methanomarinus, Ca. Methanogaster, Ca. Methanovorans. The order contains archaeon with one of the largest genome, Methanosarcina acetivorans C2A, genome size 5,75 Mbp.
The organisms placed within the order can be found in freshwater, saltwater, salt-rich sediments, anaerobic digestors, and animal digestive systems. The order consist of mesophiles or moderately thermophillic, neutrophilic or alkaliphilic species with some able to grow at high salt concentrations. Most of the species in the order were isolated or detected in marine and freshwater sediments, soil with only a few specialized lineages adapted to the digestive tract of animals - genera Methanimicrococcus, Methanolapillus, and Ca. Methanofrustulum that can be found in termites/cockroaches, millipedes, and ruminants, respectively.
Most cells have cell walls that lack peptidoglycan and pseudomurein with notable presence of methanochondroitin in Methanosarcina genus. As all other methanogens, Methanosarcinales representatives are strictly anaerobic and utilize methanogenesis pathway as the only path for ATP production. However, besides common among other methanogens substrates H2/CO2, Methanosarcinales characterized by the ability to utilize acetate, methylated compounds such as methanol or methnylamines, or even methoxyalted aromatic compounds.

Phylogeny

The order Methanosarcinales contains the following families :

Methanosarcinaceae Balch and Wolfe 1981

Methanimicrococcus corrig. Sprenger et al. 2000Methanococcoides Sowers and Ferry 1985Methanohalobium Zhilina and Zavarzin 1988Methanohalophilus Paterek and Smith 1988Methanolobus König and Stetter 1983Methanomethylovorans Lomans et al. 2004Methanosalsum Boone and Baker 2002Methanosarcina Kluyver and van Niel 1936

Methanotrichaceae Akinyemi ''et al.'' 2021

Methanothrix Huser et al. 1983

Methermicoccaceae Cheng ''et al.'' 2007

Methermicoccus Cheng et al. 2007

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