Prominent occurrence of ribosomes from an uncultured bacterium of the Verrucomicrobiales cluster in grassland soils

An uncultured bacterium of the Verrucomicrobiales cluster was identified by its 16S rDNA sequence as a major bacterium in Dutch Drentse A grassland soils. Potential metabolic activity of the according organism was estimated by applying direct ribosome isolation from soil and partial amplification of the 16S rRNA via RT-PCR using bacteria-specific primers. Temperature gradient gel electrophoresis separated the amplicons sequence specifically into reproducible fingerprints. One of the fingerprint bands matched with the signal of clone DA101. Southern blot hybridization with a DA101-specific V6 probe confirmed sequence identity. It is the first time that an organism of the Verrucomicrobiales cluster has been indicated as a potential major metabolizer in environmental microbial communities.