[1] Historically, Methylocella silvestris was originally isolated from acidic forest soils in Germany, and it is described as Gram-negative, aerobic, non-pigmented, non-motile, rod-shaped and methane-oxidizing facultative methanotroph.
[2] As an aerobic methanotrophic bacteria, Methylocella spp use methane (CH4), and methanol as their main carbon and energy source, as well as multi compounds acetate, pyruvate, succinate, malate, and ethanol.
Dunfield et.al mentioned that Methylocella silvestris is close related with Methylocella palustris KT, Beijerinckia indica ATCC 9039, and Methylocapsa acipihila B2T in terms of its phylogenetic, which make M. silvestris classified as a type II methanotroph that utilize the serine cycle for their carbon assimilation, but it does not have a soluble methane monooxygenase (sMMO) and a propane monooxygenase (PrMO).
Methylocella silvestris contains eight genes which can encode NAD(P)-dependent alcohol dehydrogenases (ADHs), pyrroloquinoline quinone (PQQ)-containing methanol dehydrogenase (Msil_0471) and a PQQ-containing ADH with 73% identity to xoxF from Methylobacterium extorquens (Msil_1587).
[4] Chen et.al stated in their article that the genome size is 4.3 MbP, and has similarity to Proteobacteria.