Research and classification of Zn-Bacteriochlorophyll-containing bacteria

长期以来，人们一直认为Mg-（细菌）叶绿素对自然界的光合作用至关重要。然而，含锌细菌叶绿素（Zn-BChl）被发现存在于嗜酸异养菌属中，并在细胞中起作用。本研究广泛研究了天然酸性环境中含Mg-BChl和/或Zn-BChl的细菌。我们用有机溶剂从酸性自然环境如水、土壤和生物微生物中提取色素并进行分析。但是这些色素无法被检测到。我们尝试用PCR方法检测含Mg-BChl和/或Zn-BChl的光合系统的puf基因，但没有得到阳性结果。从酸性矿井水、酸性温泉、酸性生物群落等酸性环境中采集了多种嗜酸好氧异养菌，并对其活细胞色素进行了分析。结果表明，产生Mg-BChl的菌株较多，产生Zn-BChl的菌株较少。

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.