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Most bacteria use organic carbon compounds from which they make their own cellular components. They derive energy from the exergonic catabolic reactions of these organic sub- strates and are known as "heterotrophs." Autotrophs, in con- trast, are able to use carbon dioxide as their sole source of carbon. The energy they require to do this may be obtained from the sunlight, e.g., in photosynthetic autotrophs, or from exergonic inorganic oxidation, as in chemolithotrophs. Nitrosomonas spp. derive all of their energy and reducing power for growth from the oxidation of ammonium to ni- trite. These microorganisms require CO2, ammonium, and mineral salts for growth and manage to build a complex microorganism from "almost nothing." This surprised me when I was an undergraduate student, and I was surprised again by the article by Chain et al. in this issue of the Journal of Bacteriology (2). The authors report that the genome of this microorganism is relatively small (fewer than 3 Mbp) and that all cell components are built with fewer than 2,500 proteins. Making biomass from "almost nothing" in Nitrosomonas eu- ropaea results in a relatively low growth rate. This microorgan- ism's commitment to brevity is reflected by the presence of a single rRNA operon, which contrasts with faster-growing het- erotrophs, which contain several copies (1, 5). Living on almost nothing forces the genes for the oxidation of ammonium (amo and hao) to duplicate, and this brings with it the duplication of

Lessons from the Genome of a Lithoautotroph: Making Biomass from Almost Nothing