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Carotenoids are the likely precursor of a significant fraction of marine dissolved organic matter.

ABSTRACT: The ocean's biota sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) in part by producing dissolved organic matter (DOM) that persists in the ocean for millennia. This long-term accumulation of carbon may be facilitated by abiotic and biotic production of chemical structures that resist degradation, consequently contributing disproportionately to refractory DOM. Compounds that are selectively preserved in seawater were identified in solid-phase extracted DOM (PPL-DOM) using comprehensive gas chromatography (GC) coupled to mass spectrometry (MS). These molecules contained cyclic head groups that were linked to isoprenoid tails, and their overall structures closely resembled carotenoid degradation products (CDP). The origin of these compounds in PPL-DOM was further confirmed with an in vitro ?-carotene photooxidation experiment that generated water-soluble CDP with similar structural characteristics. The molecular-level identification linked at least 10% of PPL-DOM carbon, and thus 4% of total DOM carbon, to CDP. Nuclear magnetic resonance spectra of experimental CDP and environmental PPL-DOM overlapped considerably, which indicated that even a greater proportion of PPL-DOM was likely composed of CDP. The CDP-rich DOM fraction was depleted in radiocarbon (¹⁴C age > 1500 years), a finding that supports the possible long-term accumulation of CDP in seawater. By linking a specific class of widespread biochemicals to refractory DOM, this work provides a foundation for future studies that aim to examine how persistent DOM forms in the ocean.

SUBMITTER: Arakawa N

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5617377 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Carotenoids are the likely precursor of a significant fraction of marine dissolved organic matter.

Arakawa Neal N Aluwihare Lihini I LI Simpson Andre J AJ Soong Ronald R Stephens Brandon M BM Lane-Coplen Daniel D

Science advances 20170927 9

The ocean's biota sequester atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO<sub>2</sub>) in part by producing dissolved organic matter (DOM) that persists in the ocean for millennia. This long-term accumulation of carbon may be facilitated by abiotic and biotic production of chemical structures that resist degradation, consequently contributing disproportionately to refractory DOM. Compounds that are selectively preserved in seawater were identified in solid-phase extracted DOM (PPL-DOM) using comprehensive gas ...[more]

PMID: 28959723

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Project description:Marine dissolved organic matter (DOM) is a complex mixture of chemical compounds. At 750 Pg C, it is one of the biggest pools of reduced carbon on Earth. It has been proposed that the diversity of DOM is responsible for its recalcitrance. We hypothesize that the chemodiversity of marine DOM is a reflection of the chemodiversity of bacterial exometabolomes. To test this, we incubated two model strains of the Roseobacter group; Phaeobacter inhibens and Dinoroseobacter shibae in pure culture using three different simple organic compounds as sole carbon sources (glutamate, glucose, and acetate and succinate for P. inhibens and D. shibae, respectively). The exometabolome of the model organisms was characterized using Fourier Transform Ion Cyclotron Resonance Mass Spectrometry (FT-ICR-MS) and ecological diversity measures. We detected thousands of molecular masses in the exometabolomes of P. inhibens and D. shibae (21,105 and 9,386, respectively), reflecting the capability of single bacterial strains to diversify simple organic compounds. The chemical composition of the exometabolomes changed with growth phase and also differed according to the strain incubated and the utilized substrate. We mimicked a higher diversity of substrates, bacterial species and heterogeneous growth (different growth phases) to approach the complexity of natural environments, by computationally creating combinations of detected exometabolomes. We compared the chemodiversity of these combinations, indicative for chemodiversity of freshly produced microbial DOM to that of refractory DOM from one of the oldest oceanic water masses (North Equatorial Pacific Intermediate Water). Some combinations of exometabolomes showed higher richness than the deep ocean refractory DOM, and all the combinations showed higher functional diversity. About 15% of the 13,509 molecular formulae detected in exometabolomes and refractory oceanic DOM were shared, i.e., occurred in Roseobacter exometabolomes and in deep water samples. This overlap provides further support for our hypothesis that marine bacteria from the Roseobacter group contribute to the sustainability of marine DOM chemodiversity and stability.

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Carotenoids are the likely precursor of a significant fraction of marine dissolved organic matter.

Publications

Carotenoids are the likely precursor of a significant fraction of marine dissolved organic matter.

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