Abstract
Cen.ar.chae'um., Gr. adj.
kainos
recent, and Gr. adj.
koinos
common; Gr. adj.
archaios
ancient; N.L. neut. n.
Cenarchaeum
= genus of relatively recent (derived nonthermophilic phenotype) and common (non‐“extremophilic”) Archaea.
The species
Candidatus
Cenarchaeum symbiosum of the genus
Candidatus
Cenarchaeum constitutes the sole archaeal symbiont of the temperate marine sponge
Axinella mexicana
. It represented the first tractable organism of the so‐called mesophilic crenarchaeota, now
Nitrososphaeria,
until pure isolates and enrichment cultures became available. It was also the source of the first assembled full genome of the
Nitrososphaeria
. Physiological and genomic analyses suggest that representatives of this genus are aerobic, psychrophilic, and capable of a chemolithoautotrophic metabolism, by oxidizing ammonia to nitrite. The environmental distribution of the genus so far has been confined to sponge‐associated communities.
DNA G
+
C content (mol%)
: 57.74.
Type species
:
Candidatus
Cenarchaeum symbiosum
Preston, Wu, Molinsky and DeLong 1996, 6246.
Taxonomic and Nomenclature Notes
According to the List of Prokaryotic names with Standing in Nomenclature (LPSN), the taxonomic status of the genus
Candidatus Cenarchaeum
is: preferred name (not correct name) (last update, February 2025)
*
.
LPSN classification:
Archaea
/
Thermoproteati
/
Thermoproteota
/
Nitrososphaeria
/
Nitrosopumilales
/
Nitrosopumilaceae
/
Candidatus Cenarchaeum
The genus
Candidatus Cenarchaeum
can also be recovered in the Genome Taxonomy Database (GTDB) as
g__Cenarchaeum
(version v220)
**
.
GTDB classification:
d__Archaea
/
p__Thermoproteota
/
c__Nitrososphaeria
/
o__Nitrososphaerales
/
f__Nitrosopumilaceae
/
g__Cenarchaeum
*
Meier‐Kolthoff
et al. (
2022
).
Nucleic Acids Res
,
50
,
D801
–
D807
; DOI:
10.1093/nar/gkab902
**
Parks
et al. (
2022
).
Nucleic Acids Res
,
50
,
D785
–
D794
; DOI:
10.1093/nar/gkab776