Ralstonia

Ralstonia is a genus of Proteobacteria, previously included in the genus Pseudomonas. It is named after the American bacteriologist Ericka Ralston.^[2] Ericka Ralston was born Ericka Barrett in 1944 in Saratoga, California, and died in 2015 in Sebastopol, California. While in graduate school at the University of California at Berkeley, she identified 20 strains of Pseudomonas which formed a phenotypical homologous group,^[3] and named them Pseudomonas pickettii, after M.J. Pickett in the Department of Bacteriology at the University of California at Los Angeles, from whom she had received the strains. Later, P. pickettii was transferred to the new genus Ralstonia, along with several other species.^[4] She continued her research into bacterial pathogenesis under the name of Ericka Barrett while a professor of microbiology at the University of California at Davis from 1977 until her retirement in 1996.

Industrial uses

Researchers at UCLA have genetically modified a strain of Ralstonia (R. eutropha H16) to produce isobutanol from CO₂ feedstock using electricity produced by a solar cell. The project, funded by the U.S. Dept. of Energy, is a potential high energy-density electrofuel that could use existing infrastructure to replace oil as a transportation fuel.^[5]

Genomics

• Ralstonia Genome Projects (from Genomes OnLine Database)
• Comparative Analysis of Ralstonia Genomes (at DOE's IMG system)

Ralstonia has also been identified as a common contaminant of DNA extraction kit or PCR reagents, which may lead to its erroneous appearance in microbiota or metagenomic datasets.^[6]

References