Biology 3484A/B Chapter Notes - Chapter 3: Thermophile, Carl Woese, Cyanobacteria
29 May 2016
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By late 70s a five kingdom system had been accepted. Distinction was made between the prokaryotic bacteria and the four eukaryotic kingdoms (plants, animals, fungi and protists). Distinction recognizes certain traits, which the eukaryotic organisms share, such as nuclei, cytoskeletons and internal membranes. Dr. carl woese and his colleagues at the university of illinois were studying the relationships among the prokaryotes using. Dna sequences and found there were 2 distinctly different groups. Bacteria that lived at high temperatures or produced methane clustered together as a group well away from the usual bacteria and eukaryotes. Woese thus proposed that life be divided into 3 domains: Archaebacteria is a term that was abandoned because they aren"t bacteria. Most achaeans don"t look much different from bacteria under the microscope, and being extremophiles makes them difficult to culture therefore went long unrecognized. However biochemically and genetically they are as different from bacteria as are we.
