Isolation and identification of a methanogen from the high temperature oil reservoir water

Abstract:

To explore new microbial resources in deep subsurface oil reservoirs, strain DL-7 was isolated with Hungate technology from oil reservoir water sampled from Dagang oilfield, China. Physiological and biochemical examinations showed that H2/CO2 is the unique substrate of the strain, which cannot metabolize formate, methanol, trimethylamine, acetate and other secondary alcohols. The optimum growth conditions were further identified to be 60°C, pH 7.0?7.5 and 0.25% NaCl. Moreover, the strain cannot grow without yeast extract. Analysis of its 16S rRNA sequence indicated that a similarity of 99.7% presents between the strain and the model species M. marburgensis DSM2133T (X15364).

Key words:microorganisms in petroleum reservoir, thermautotrophic methanogen, phylogenetic analysis