Images: Iron Mountain microbial biofilm
Caption: Microbial biofilm yields community genomes and metabolic clues. Examining life extracted from toxic runoff at a northern California mine, researchers for the first time have reconstructed multiple individual genomes from a microbial community taken from an environmental sample rather than from a laboratory culture.
Left image: Acidic drainage from a mine flows on the surface after passing through the underground study site at Iron Mountain, near Redding, California
Credit: Gene Tyson, UC Berkeley
Top right image: Researcher getting samples of the pink biofilm from a toxic drainage deep in the mine.
Credit: Brett Baker
Bottom right image: This FISH (fluorescence in situ hybridization) image of the biofilm – showing Leptospirillum in yellow, archae in blue, and Sulfobacillus in green – is surrounded by a representation of a genome sequence that indicates genes by colored bars.
Credit: Gene Tyson and Jill Banfield, UC Berkeley
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