Thermoplasma

In taxonomy, Thermoplasma is a genus of the Thermoplasmataceae.

Thermoplasma is a genus of archaea. It belongs to the Thermoplasmata, which thrive in acidic and high-temperature environments. Thermoplasma are facultative anaerobes and respire using sulfur and organic carbon. They do not contain a cell wall but instead contain a unique membrane composed mainly of a tetraether lipoglycan containing atypical archaeal tetraether lipid attached to a glucose- and mannose-containing oligosaccharide. This lipoglycan is presumably responsible for the acid and thermal stability of the Thermoplasma membrane.

Currently the genus Thermoplasma contains two species, T. acidophilum and T. volcanium. T. acidophilum was originally isolated from a self-heating coal refuse pile, at pH 2 and 59 °C. Many T. volcanium strains have been isolated from solfatara fields throughout the world. Both species are highly flagellated. The genomes for both T. acidophilum (Ruepp, 2000) and T. volcanicum have been sequenced.

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