The chemolithotrophic prokaryotes

Abstract

Such was Winogradsky's (1887) description of the ability of certain bacteria to use energy from inorganic chemicals. Winogradsky's (1887) name for such organisms was Anorgoxydanten (literally inorganic oxidizers). Today the term chemolithotrophy is used to describe the energy metabolism of bacteria that use the oxidation of inorganic substances, in the absence of light, as a source of energy for cell biosynthesis and maintenance (Rittenberg 1969; Brock and Schlegel 1989; Kelly 1990). Chemolithotrophs exhibit extraordinary diversity of substrates, modes of carbon nutrition, morphology, and habitat. Grouping chemolithotrophs into some kind of homogeneous taxonomic unit is thus at least as artificial as grouping by most taxonomic devices in that virtually every possible morphology and physiology among bacteria (including the archaebacteria) is represented. Such taxonomic lumping does have value because some fundamental aspects of carbon and energy metabolism unify many of the chemolithotrophs into groups that are useful for physiological comparison.