"Vetriani's lab first isolated the T. ammonificans bacterium from a black smoker hydrothermal vent chimney on the East Pacific Rise. It thrives in hot environments rich in volcanic gases such as hydrogen, carbon dioxide, and sulfur dioxide. 'T. ammonificans is a modern organism that lives on the planet today, but in an environment that resembles conditions on early Earth,' said senior author Vetriani. 'We can assume that some of the genetic or metabolic traits that are present today, may have been inherited from an ancestor that lived on early Earth.'
"After realizing that T. ammonificans likely stemmed from a deep branch on the tree of life, Vetriani sequenced the genome with the help of the Joint Genome Institute. But it wasn't until Giovannelli joined Vetriani's lab that the group was able to use bioinformatics techniques to fully analyze that genome. The researchers combined comparative genomics approaches that draw evolutionary connections between T. ammonificans and related microbes, with physiological experiments, and proteomic analyses that look at all of the proteins expressed by the bacterium. Together, these techniques enabled the researchers to reconstruct the evolutionary history of the organism and determine its early metabolism."