''Moorella thermoacetica'', previously known as ''Clostridium thermoaceticum'', is an

acetogenic Acetogenesis is a process through which acetate is produced either by the reduction of CO2 or by the reduction of organic acids, rather than by the oxidative breakdown of carbohydrates or ethanol, as with acetic acid bacteria. The different bacte ...

thermophilic A thermophile is an organism—a type of extremophile—that thrives at relatively high temperatures, between . Many thermophiles are archaea, though they can be bacteria or fungi. Thermophilic eubacteria are suggested to have been among the earl ...

, strictly

anaerobic Anaerobic means "living, active, occurring, or existing in the absence of free oxygen", as opposed to aerobic which means "living, active, or occurring only in the presence of oxygen." Anaerobic may also refer to: * Anaerobic adhesive, a bonding a ...

endospore An endospore is a dormant, tough, and non-reproductive structure produced by some bacteria in the phylum Bacillota. The name "endospore" is suggestive of a spore or seed-like form (''endo'' means 'within'), but it is not a true spore (i.e., no ...

-forming, bacterium belonging to the

phylum In biology, a phylum (; plural: phyla) is a level of classification or taxonomic rank below kingdom and above class. Traditionally, in botany the term division has been used instead of phylum, although the International Code of Nomenclature f ...

Bacillota The Bacillota (synonym Firmicutes) are a phylum of bacteria, most of which have gram-positive cell wall structure. The renaming of phyla such as Firmicutes in 2021 remains controversial among microbiologists, many of whom continue to use the earl ...

. Researchers at the

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), commonly referred to as the Berkeley Lab, is a United States Department of Energy National Labs, United States national laboratory that is owned by, and conducts scientific research on behalf of, t ...

, including

Peidong Yang Peidong Yang (; born 1971) is a Chinese-American chemist, material scientist, and businessman. He is currently a professor at the University of California, Berkeley (since 1999) and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a P ...

, were able to induce ''M. thermoacetica'' to photosynthesize, despite its not being photosynthetic. It also synthesized semiconductor nanoparticles, thus using light to produce chemical products other than those produced in photosynthesis.

References

External links

Type strain of ''Moorella thermoacetica'' at Bac''Dive'' - the Bacterial Diversity Metadatabase
Thermoanaerobacterales Bacteria described in 1994 Thermophiles Anaerobes Acetogens {{clostridia-stub