Description:

Researchers have found a strange and tiny new group of microbes which live on other microbes at the bottom of the sea.  The organisms are about 400 nanometers across.  The new bugs seem unable to survive alone.  The relationship between these tiny microbes and their hosts is unclear.  It is unknown if they do any damage, and their hosts do fine without them. The microbe has one of the smallest genomes known with only half a million DNA letters. Sequencing its genome may point to the minimum number of genes needed for an organism to sustain itself. The new microbes are called Nanoarchaeota. They belong to a group called the Archaea, one of the three giant branches of life along with bacteria and eukaryotes, which contains us and other animals, plants and fungi.

The image is a confocal laser scanning micrograph after hybridization with the CY3-labelled probe 515mcR ('Nanoarchaeum') and rhodamine-green-labelled probe CREN499R (Ignicoccus). The scale bar is 1.0 µm.

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