This Melaninabacteria phylum is a new branch of bacteria that was discovered in human guts and in groundwater. Jillian Banfield from University of California and Ruth Ley of Cornell University were characterizing microbial communities in human feces and environment samples. They discovered that some DNA sequences were distantly related. Which led to the discovery that they were distantly related to cyanobacteria which is photosynthetic. They performed more sequencing and discovered 3 complete and 3 partial genomes for this bacteria.
However, the melaninabacteria lack genes that are needed for photosynthesis and for coping with oxygen. It is believed that they therefore generate energy by fermenting different molecules that contain carbon. This also may provide the bacterias human hosts with B and K vitamins. I found this article very interesting to find that a phylum of bacteria is not only found in our guts but also in groundwater. Besides those two vitamins, I wonder if too much of this bacteria is produced of consumed is harmful and how.
http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2013/10/new-bacteria-found-human-gut
http://elife.elifesciences.org/content/2/e01102.abstract
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