Hi Hailin,

As per my understanding and knowledge, yes, but not directly. Rather, acetate can be oxidized to methane by syntrophic pathway and than methane could be used to produce methanol.

* It would be interesting if experts could give better answers to your nice question.

(By the way, I and my colleague will be in Copenhagen for a course in AAU, and it would be nice if we could meet and discuss a bit. Send me a message if this seems interesting to you)

Yes, I know that pathway.

However, my problem is that I have reactors fed with only acetate to produce methane, and I found the most abundant methanogens is the one that can only produce methane by using H2 to reduce methanol and *(mono, di, tri) methylamine. This makes me think if there are some bacteria which use acetate to systhesis methanol and *(mono, di, tri) methylamine, and then produce methane.

Anaerobic halophilic bacteria, Degradation of betaine, Methylamines, Methanogenic bacteria, Acetogenic bacteria

Thanks Huda.

Can you please give some specific names?

Dear Mr. Tian,

Is it Methanomassiliicoccus luminyensis? If it is, I'm also having the similar trend in my acetate-fed continuous reactor. In my case, this methanogen became dominant at increased ammonia concentration in the digester, but there was no sign of increase of any of known SAOBs according to my sequencing results. Interestingly, Clostridia D8A-2 and Genus Alkaliphilus exhibited significant increase. I speculated that these bacteria might be related in somehow. My additional but rough speculation is that there might be unknown strain within that species which is capable of utilizing acetate directly. Anyway, I hope you to find the answer. Good luck!

Thanks Joonyeob.

Yes, it is Methanomassiliicoccus luminyensis. I cannot find any identified bacteria that can produce methanol or methylamines for this methanogen, especially this Methanomassiliicoccus luminyensis was the most dominant methanogen in my case. I am also working on increased ammonia condition. I had the same speculation with you, which I think I will also propose this possibility in my manuscript.