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Helicase

Thermophiles

Microbes that thrive in heat, such as Thermus aquaticus from hot springs, the source of a heat-stable enzyme used in PCR.Source: Brock & Freeze, 1969Source: Chien et al., 1976Source: Saiki et al., 1988

Also called Thermus aquaticus, Taq.

Organism or group
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How Thermophiles connects

Thermophiles is used by

  • Technology or method

    PCR

    The polymerase chain reaction copies a chosen stretch of DNA millions to billions of times.

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Thermophiles is related to

  • Organism or group

    Bacteria

    Small single-celled organisms without a nucleus, found almost everywhere on Earth. Most bacteria in the human body are harmless, and some are helpful.

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  • Organism or group

    Archaea

    Single-celled organisms without a nucleus that form a separate domain of life from bacteria.

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Studied in

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Sources & further reading

The explanations on this page are our own summaries of these sources. Follow a link to read the original; if anything here disagrees with it, the original wins. How we choose and check sources.

  1. Thermus aquaticus gen. n. and sp. n., a nonsporulating extreme thermophile (opens the original in a new tab)

    Brock TD, Freeze H (1969). Journal of Bacteriology 98:289-297.

    Isolation of the hot-spring bacterium later used as the source of Taq polymerase.

    Historical paperPrimary research