Carboxydothermus hydrogenoformans

Carboxydothermus hydrogenoformans is an extremely thermophilic anaerobic Gram-positive bacterium that has the interesting property of producing hydrogen as a waste product while feeding on carbon monoxide and water. It also forms endospores.

Carboxydothermus hydrogenoformans
Endospore of C. hydrogenoformans
Scientific classification
Domain:	Bacteria
Kingdom:	Bacillati
Phylum:	Bacillota
Class:	Clostridia
Order:	Carboxydothermales
Family:	Carboxydothermaceae
Genus:	Carboxydothermus
Species:	C. hydrogenoformans
Binomial name
Carboxydothermus hydrogenoformans Svetlichny 1991

It was isolated from a hot spring on the Russian volcanic island of Kunashir by Svetlichny et al. in 1991.^[1] Its complete genome was sequenced in 2005 by a team of scientists of the Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) ^[2]

According to TIGR evolutionary biologist Jonathan Eisen, "C. hydrogenoformans is one of the fastest-growing microbes that can convert water and carbon monoxide to hydrogen." The microbe owes this to the fact that it has at least five different forms of carbon monoxide dehydrogenase.