Thermus is a genus of thermophilic bacteria adapted to life at high temperatures, found in hot springs, geothermal vents, and other heated environments. Its best-known member, Thermus aquaticus, is of major importance to molecular biology because it is the natural source of Taq DNA polymerase, a heat-stable enzyme t…
Thermus is a genus of thermophilic bacteria adapted to life at high temperatures, found in hot springs, geothermal vents, and other heated environments. Its best-known member, Thermus aquaticus, is of major importance to molecular biology because it is the natural source of Taq DNA polymerase, a heat-stable enzyme that retains activity at the temperatures required to separate DNA strands. This thermostability made Taq polymerase the enabling reagent of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), a technique that amplifies specific DNA sequences and has become fundamental to genetics, diagnostics, forensics, and biotechnology. More broadly, Thermus species are a valuable source of thermostable Enzymes whose robustness under harsh conditions makes them attractive for industrial and laboratory processes. As a topic within enzyme science, Thermus highlights how Enzymes from extremophilic organisms expand the toolkit available for nucleic acid manipulation and other applications. This page gathers peer-reviewed, open-access research relevant to Thermus, thermostable Enzymes, and their uses in molecular biology and biotechnology.
1 peer-reviewed article, ranked by relevance. Each links to its DOI.
The 1 article above has been cited 2 times in the scholarly literature. Citation data via OpenAlex and Crossref, updated Jun 2026.
A sample of recent works citing this journal's research on Thermus, linking to each citing work.