"Aromatoleum" is a genus of

bacteria Bacteria (; singular: bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one biological cell. They constitute a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria were among ...

capable of

microbial biodegradation Microbial biodegradation is the use of bioremediation and biotransformation methods to harness the naturally occurring ability of microbial xenobiotic metabolism to degrade, transform or accumulate environmental pollutants, including hydrocarbons (e ...

of organic pollutants. It has one single described species member, ''A. aromaticum'', for which the only strain is strain EbN1. This taxonomy is accepted by the

NCBI The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) is part of the United States National Library of Medicine (NLM), a branch of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). It is approved and funded by the government of the United States. The ...

taxonomy database, and consequently by many bioinformatic databases. However, it the strain EbN1 has not been described in detail, therefore, according to the

International Code of Nomenclature of Bacteria The International Code of Nomenclature of Prokaryotes (ICNP) formerly the International Code of Nomenclature of Bacteria (ICNB) or Bacteriological Code (BC) governs the scientific names for Bacteria and Archaea.P. H. A. Sneath, 2003. A short histor ...

, the name "Aromatoleum aromaticum" is not valid and should be officially referred to as ''

Azoarcus ''Azoarcus'' is a genus of nitrogen-fixing bacteria. Species in this genus are usually found in contaminated water, as they are involved in the degradation of some contaminants, commonly inhabiting soil. These bacteria have also been found growin ...

'' sp. EbN1 as it belongs to the ''Azoarcus''/''Thauera'' cluster. The discovery of the strain was published in 1995, and was subsequently referred to in the literature as "Aromatoleum aromaticum" and cited as "(Rabus, unpublished data)". ''A. aromaticum'' strain EbN1 has been fully sequenced by the same researchers who discovered it and coworkers. It has one chromosome and two plasmids, encoding for 10 anaerobic and 4 aerobic aromatic degradation pathways. The genome is rich in

paralogous Sequence homology is the biological homology between DNA, RNA, or protein sequences, defined in terms of shared ancestry in the evolutionary history of life. Two segments of DNA can have shared ancestry because of three phenomena: either a sp ...

gene clusters In biology, the word gene (from , ; "...Wilhelm Johannsen coined the word gene to describe the Mendelian units of heredity..." meaning ''generation'' or ''birth'' or ''gender'') can have several different meanings. The Mendelian gene is a ba ...

, mobile gene elements, and genes similar to that from other bacteria, suggesting a history full of

horizontal gene transfer Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) or lateral gene transfer (LGT) is the movement of genetic material between Unicellular organism, unicellular and/or multicellular organisms other than by the ("vertical") transmission of DNA from parent to offsprin ...

events. The bacterium has a well-regulated metabolic network. Unlike many species in ''Azoarcus'' proper, it is incapable of fixing nitrogen.

References

Biodegradation Bacteria genera Monotypic bacteria genera {{Betaproteobacteria-stub