Dataset Information

Variation of Oxygenation Conditions on a Hydrocarbonoclastic Microbial Community Reveals Alcanivorax and Cycloclasticus Ecotypes.

ABSTRACT: Deciphering the ecology of marine obligate hydrocarbonoclastic bacteria (MOHCB) is of crucial importance for understanding their success in occupying distinct niches in hydrocarbon-contaminated marine environments after oil spills. In marine coastal sediments, MOHCB are particularly subjected to extreme fluctuating conditions due to redox oscillations several times a day as a result of mechanical (tide, waves and currents) and biological (bioturbation) reworking of the sediment. The adaptation of MOHCB to the redox oscillations was investigated by an experimental ecology approach, subjecting a hydrocarbon-degrading microbial community to contrasting oxygenation regimes including permanent anoxic conditions, anoxic/oxic oscillations and permanent oxic conditions. The most ubiquitous MOHCB, Alcanivorax and Cycloclasticus, showed different behaviors, especially under anoxic/oxic oscillation conditions, which were more favorable for Alcanivorax than for Cycloclasticus. The micro-diversity of 16S rRNA gene transcripts from these genera revealed specific ecotypes for different oxygenation conditions and their dynamics. It is likely that such ecotypes allow the colonization of distinct ecological niches that may explain the success of Alcanivorax and Cycloclasticus in hydrocarbon-contaminated coastal sediments during oil-spills.

SUBMITTER: Terrisse F

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5562018 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Variation of Oxygenation Conditions on a Hydrocarbonoclastic Microbial Community Reveals <i>Alcanivorax</i> and <i>Cycloclasticus</i> Ecotypes.

Terrisse Fanny F Cravo-Laureau Cristiana C Noël Cyril C Cagnon Christine C Dumbrell Alex J AJ McGenity Terry J TJ Duran Robert R

Frontiers in microbiology 20170816

Deciphering the ecology of marine obligate hydrocarbonoclastic bacteria (MOHCB) is of crucial importance for understanding their success in occupying distinct niches in hydrocarbon-contaminated marine environments after oil spills. In marine coastal sediments, MOHCB are particularly subjected to extreme fluctuating conditions due to redox oscillations several times a day as a result of mechanical (tide, waves and currents) and biological (bioturbation) reworking of the sediment. The adaptation o ...[more]

PMID: 28861063

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Project description:Autochthonous microorganisms inhabiting hydrocarbon polluted marine environments play a fundamental role in natural attenuation and constitute promising resources for bioremediation approaches. Alcanivorax spp. members are ubiquitous in contaminated surface waters and are the first to flourish on a wide range of alkanes after an oil-spill. Following oil contamination, a transient community of different Alcanivorax spp. develop, but whether they use a similar physiological, cellular and transcriptomic response to hydrocarbon substrates is unknown. In order to identify which cellular mechanisms are implicated in alkane degradation, we investigated the response of two isolates belonging to different Alcanivorax species, A. dieselolei KS 293 and A. borkumensis SK2 growing on n-dodecane (C12) or on pyruvate. Both strains were equally able to grow on C12 but they activated different strategies to exploit it as carbon and energy source. The membrane morphology and hydrophobicity of SK2 changed remarkably, from neat and hydrophilic on pyruvate to indented and hydrophobic on C12, while no changes were observed in KS 293. In addition, SK2 accumulated a massive amount of intracellular grains when growing on pyruvate, which might constitute a carbon reservoir. Furthermore, SK2 significantly decreased medium surface tension with respect to KS 293 when growing on C12, as a putative result of higher production of biosurfactants. The transcriptomic responses of the two isolates were also highly different. KS 293 changes were relatively balanced when growing on C12 with respect to pyruvate, giving almost the same amount of upregulated (28%), downregulated (37%) and equally regulated (36%) genes, while SK2 transcription was upregulated for most of the genes (81%) when growing on pyruvate when compared to C12. While both strains, having similar genomic background in genes related to hydrocarbon metabolism, retained the same capability to grow on C12, they nevertheless presented very different physiological, cellular and transcriptomic landscapes.

Project description:In bacterial populations, subtle expressional differences may promote ecological specialization through the formation of distinct ecotypes. In a barrier-free habitat, this process most likely precedes population divergence and may predict speciation events. To examine this, we used four sequenced strains of the bacterium Shewanella baltica, OS155, OS185, OS195, and OS223, as models to assess transcriptional variation and ecotype formation within a prokaryotic population. All strains were isolated from different depths throughout a water column of the Baltic Sea, occupying different ecological niches characterized by various abiotic parameters. Although the genome sequences are nearly 100% conserved, when grown in the laboratory under standardized conditions, all strains exhibited different growth rates, suggesting significant expressional variation. Using the Ecotype Simulation algorithm, all strains were considered to be discrete ecotypes when compared to 32 other S. baltica strains isolated from the same water column, suggesting ecological divergence. Next, we employed custom microarray slides containing oligonucleotide probes representing the core genome of OS155, OS185, OS195, and OS223 to detect natural transcriptional variation among strains grown under identical conditions. Significant transcriptional variation was noticed among all four strains. Differentially expressed gene profiles seemed to coincide with the metabolic signatures of the environment at the original isolation depth. Transcriptional pattern variations such as the ones highlighted here may be used as indicators of short-term evolution emerging from the formation of bacterial ecotypes. IMPORTANCE Eukaryotic studies have shown considerable transcriptional variation among individuals from the same population. It has been suggested that natural variation in eukaryotic gene expression may have significant evolutionary consequences and may explain large-scale phenotypic divergence of closely related species, such as humans and chimpanzees (M.-C. King and A. C. Wilson, Science 188:107-116, 1975, http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1090005; M. F. Oleksiak, G. A. Churchill, and D. L. Crawford, Nat Genet 32:261-266, 2002, http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ng983). However, natural variation in gene expression is much less well understood in prokaryotic organisms. In this study, we used four sequenced strains of the marine bacterium Shewanella baltica to better understand the natural transcriptional divergence of a stratified prokaryotic population. We found substantial low-magnitude expressional variation among the four S. baltica strains cultivated under identical laboratory conditions. Collectively, our results indicate that transcriptional variation is an important factor for ecological speciation.

Dataset Information

Variation of Oxygenation Conditions on a Hydrocarbonoclastic Microbial Community Reveals Alcanivorax and Cycloclasticus Ecotypes.

Publications

Variation of Oxygenation Conditions on a Hydrocarbonoclastic Microbial Community Reveals <i>Alcanivorax</i> and <i>Cycloclasticus</i> Ecotypes.

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