Chlamydia is alive and well in the Arctic Ocean, scientists have discovered.
The bacteria is infamous for causing sexually-transmitted infections in humans but it seems they’re also partial to deep Arctic ocean sediments. Apparently, it is capable of living in immense pressure in oxygen-devoid conditions and without a host organism.
The team of researchers that picked up on the bacteria in this unlikely place were, to put it mildly, surprised.
‘Finding Chlamydiae in this environment was completely unexpected, and of course begged the question what on earth were they doing there?’ said Jennah Dharamshi, a PhD student from Uppsala University in Sweden and lead author of the study on the finding, which was published in the journal Current Biology.
The bacteria was found roughly two miles below the surface in hydrothermal vents between Iceland, Norway and Svalbard.
Chlamydiae specifically interact with organisms such as animals, plants and fungi, and including microscopic organisms like amoeba, algae and plankton. Chlamydiae spend a large part of their lives inside the cells of their hosts. Most knowledge about Chlamydiae is based on studies of pathogenic lineages in the lab.
While the researchers say they don’t really know what the bacteria is doing down there and how it survives, they think it may have something to do with compounds in the sediment. Either way, the several new species of chlamydia they found was ‘exceptionally abundant’ down there.
‘The vast majority of life on earth is microbial, and currently most of it can’t be grown in the lab,’ explained Thijs Ettema, professor in Microbiology at Wageningen University & Research in The Netherlands who led the work.
‘By using genomic methods, we obtained a more clear image on the diversity of life. Every time we explore a different environment, we discover groups of microbes that are new to science. This tells us just how much is still left to discover.’
So there you have it: the Arctic Ocean has chlamydia.
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