Research and classification of Zn-Bacteriochlorophyll-containing bacteria

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It has been thought for a long time that Mg-(bacterio)chlorophylls are essential for the photosynthesis in nature. However, Zn-containing bacteriochlorophyll (Zn-BChl) was discovered to be present in the acidophilic aerobic heterotrophic bacteria, genus Acidiphilium, and to be functional in cells. In this study we investigated widely the bacteria with Mg-BChl and/or Zn-BChl in natural acid environments.1. We extracted and analysed the pigments by organic solvents from the acid natural environments such as waters, soils, and biomat. But the pigments could not be detected.2. We tried to detect the puf genes of photosynthetic systems with Mg-BChl and/or Zn-BChl by PCR method but obtained no positive results.3. We collected many acidophilic aerobic heterotrophic bacteria from many acid environments such as acid mine waters, acid hot springs, acid biomat, and analysed the pigments in living cells of the isolates. As the results, relatively many isolates with the Mg-BChl were found but Zn-BChl producers were rarely.