Dibiphytanyl ether lipids in nonthermophilic crenarchaeotes

Abstract

The kingdom Crenarchaeota is now known to include archaea which inhabit a wide variety of low-temperature environments. We report here lipid analyses of nonthermophilic crenarchaeotes, which revealed the presence of cyclic and acyclic dibiphytanylglycerol tetraether lipids. Nonthermophilic erenarchaeotes appear to be a major biological source of tetraether lipids in marine planktonic environments.