Yellowstone’s Microbial Gold Rush

Imagine finding a unique microbe, donating it to a public repository, who sells a sample for $35, which is then converted into a $200 million a year industry. This actually happened, and Yellowstone National park was the heart of the discovery.

Currently, less than one percent of Yellowstone's microscopic life forms have been discovered and studied, but there is growing “gold rush” to capitalize on their unique properties. Yellowstone Park's bizarre steam vents and odiferous boiling “pots” are more than just tourist attractions. The geological oddities are home to exotic thermophilic, or heat-loving microbes, and other oddities that are seen as potentially highly valuable treasure for a variety of industries. Indeed, Yellowstone's unique evolutions of thermophilic organisms are yielding remarkable new microbial specimens with implications for medicine, energy and agriculture, among other industries.

Bacteriologist Thomas Brock identified the future lucrative bacteria mentioned earlier, known as Thermus aquaticus, in 1966. The bacteria thrived in temperatures of 80+ degrees Celsius (176+ degrees Fahrenheit), amidst the pink algae of Yellowstone's Lower Geyser Basin. Brock had no idea of the enormous value he was handing over, when he donated several specimens to a public repository in Washington D.C., the American Type Culture Collection. Years later, Dr. Kary Mullis, a researcher from a biochemical corporation, bought a sample for a mere $35. Mullis went on to be awarded a Nobel Prize in chemistry using Thermus aquaticus as a key component in a process used to identify and analyze the genetic fingerprints of DNA and can be used in a wide variety of other processes. Mullis' company sold the rights to his Taq-based process in 1991 to Swiss pharmaceutical giant F. Hoffmann-LaRoche for $300 million. Today, Hoffmann-LaRoche's annual sales of related licenses and equipment related to the process runs over $200 million.

Last summer, a new species of Yellowstone bacterium was discovered that could one day outshine even Thermus aquaticus. The new bacteria produces chlorophyll, and converts light energy through photosynthesis into chemical energy. A research team found the new bacterium living in the very same hot springs as the currently “most-famous” Yellowstone microbial resident.

Indeed the hot springs of Yellowstone are a scientific reservoir housing what is believed to be the world's largest diversity of thermophilic bacteria. Scientists have searched these habitats for decades hoping to find new organisms that may have important applications in biotechnology.

"Finding a previously unknown, chlorophyll-producing microbe is the discovery of a lifetime for someone who has studied bacterial photosynthesis for as long as I have (35 years)," said researcher Don Bryant who came across the new bacteria. "I wouldn't have been as excited if I had reached into that mat and pulled out a gold nugget the size of my fist!"

Bryant has good reason to feel that way. The new technologies derived from such a find could well be worth a fortune. This novel heat-loving bacterium can transforms light into chemical energy. Remarkably, this new genus and species of bacterium known as Cab. thermophilum also belongs to an entirely new phylum, Acidobacteria. The strange new bacterium has special light-harvesting antennae known as chlorosomes, which contain about 250,000 chlorophylls each. No member of this phylum, nor any aerobic microbe, has ever been known to make chlorosomes before this discovery. Scientists are hopeful that this discovery may lead to novel applications in the field of biotechnology. Dr. Dave Ward of the Thermal Biology Institute of Montana State University said that because of new knowledge of microbial solar-energy capture, this bacterium may have implications for alternative fuels.

The discoveries just keep on coming. Scientists have found a unique grass that thrives near hot springs and provides fresh feed for elk and bison during the winter, thanks to a root system aided symbiotically by a heat-tolerant microscopic fungus. Scientists believe these unique traits could someday be applied to allow crops to survive in drought conditions of sun-baked soil.

Yellowstone microbes, along with a few other hot spots around the globe, are believed to be highly valuable prospects for bioremediation, cleaning up chemical pollution, oil slicks and smokestack emissions. They may also be useful as a means of accelerating biomass fermentation and many other undiscovered applications.

Yellowstone Park, who has carefully protected these reservoirs of strange life over the years, regretted having no share in the Taq test profits. But they’re hoping to get a return on the natural resources the park houses in the future. The National Park Service signed a research-sharing agreement with Diversa Corporation in 1998. However, non-profit groups adamantly complained of bio-piracy and sued the Park Service over the arrangement. A federal court dismissed the case, but ordered the Park Service to address the issue by assembling a full-blown environmental impact statement that allowed for public comment. A 340-page draft was completed last year. The Park Service is now in the process of trying to come up with an acceptable, benefits-sharing agreement that might allow bio-prospecting of microbes and disclosure of findings, with a fair return to the Park from any commercial success.

Thermus aquaticus discoverer Brock, however, isn’t wallowing in regret. "Yellowstone didn't get any money from it. I didn't get any money, either, and I'm not complaining. The Taq culture was provided for public research use, and it has given great benefit to mankind.”

Posted by Rebecca Sato