We are super excited for what the future holds studying this beautiful and fascinating bacterium. Check out the paper if you're interested for more! 17/

What we were seeing had never been observed before -- two groups in the same phylum with different core reaction centers for photosynthesis. Turns out these were in two fundamentally different photsynthetic reaction centres classes, too -- Type 1 vs. Type 2 reaction centres 13/

Phylogenomic approaches showed us that pretty much all other phototrophy-related genes and taxonomic marker genes pointed to a consistent phylogenetic topology, with our novel bacterium placing in a basal clade (novel order) compared to canonical #Chloroflexota phototrophs 12/

The bacterium seemed related in some ways to known phototrophs in the #Chloroflexota phylum, but the gene for its photosynthetic reaction centre -- the "heart" of photosynthesis that converts light into chemical energy -- was in a completely novel clade 10/

And wow! Turns out the expertise of this group in cultivation was just what was needed. Changed up the medium, switched to soft agar, and boom -- revival of filamentous & highly autofluorescent cells. It was a phototroph after all... 8/

And crazily enough, we found something! But not what we had initially been looking for. After many failed incubations, one oligotrophic setup finally yielded signs of iron oxidation. This was the best-growing candidate within a set of bottles that had some signs of activity 4/