Cultivation of the ubiquitous SAR11 marine bacterioplankton clade in 2002

Group accounts for 26% of all ribosomal RNA sequences that have been identified in seawater Cultures obtained by high-throughput procedures for isolating cell cultures through the dilution of natural microbial communities into very low nutrient media. Volume of cells is 0.01 μm3 – amongst the smallest free-living cells in culture. Cells are crescent-shaped, 0.37-0.89 μm in length with average cell diameter of 0.12-0.2 μm. Genome size estimated to be 1.54 Mb