Project description:Sulfur metabolism in the deep-sea cold seep has been mentioned to have an important contribution to the biogeochemical cycle of sulfur in previous studies. And sulfate reducing bacteria have also been considered to be a dominant microbial population in the deep-sea cold seep and play a crucial role in this process. However, most of sulfate reducing bacteria from cold seep still cannot be purely cultured under laboratory conditions, therefore the actual sulfur metabolism pathways in sulfate reducing bacteria from the deep-sea cold seep have remained unclear. Here, we isolate and pure culture a typical sulfate reducing bacterium Desulfovibrio marinus CS1 from the sediment sample of the deep-sea cold seep in the South China Sea, which provides a probability to understand the sulfur metabolism in the cold seep.
Project description:Dissimilatory sulfate reduction (DSR) mediated by sulfate-reducing microorganisms (SRMs) plays a pivotal role in global sulfur, carbon, oxygen, and iron cycles since ~3.5 billion years ago. The canonical DSR pathway is believed to be sulfate reduction to sulfide. Herein, we report a new DSR pathway in phylogenetically diverse SRMs through which zero-valent sulfur (ZVS) is directly generated. We identified that approximately 8.9% of sulfate reduction was directed toward ZVS with S8 as a predominant product, and the ratio of sulfate-to-ZVS could be changed with SRMs’ growth conditions, particularly the medium salinity. Further coculturing experiments and metadata analyses revealed that DSR-derived ZVS supported the growth of various ZVS-metabolizing microorganisms, highlighting this new pathway as an essential component of the sulfur biogeochemical cycle
Project description:Sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB) are terminal members of any anaerobic food chain. For example, they critically influence the biogeochemical cycling of carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, and metals (natural environment) as well as the corrosion of civil infrastructure (built environment). The United States alone spends nearly $4 billion to address the biocorrosion challenges of SRB. It is important to analyze the genetic mechanisms of these organisms under environmental stresses. The current study uses transcriptome-wide marker gene panel mapping to decipher the stress mechanisms in SRB. This project contains 3 control samples and 6 test samples of RNA-seq data of Oleidesulfovibrio alaskensis strain G20, exposed to pristine copper and graphene-coated copper.
Project description:The deep marine subsurface is one of the largest unexplored biospheres on Earth, where members of the phylum Chloroflexi are abundant and globally distributed. However, the deep-sea Chloroflexi have remained elusive to cultivation, hampering a more thorough understanding of their metabolisms. In this work, we have successfully isolated a representative of the phylum Chloroflexi, designated strain ZRK33, from deep-sea cold seep sediments. Phylogenetic analyses based on 16S rRNA genes, genomes, RpoB and EF-tu proteins indicated that strain ZRK33 represents a novel class within the phylum Chloroflexi, designated Sulfochloroflexia. We present a detailed description of the phenotypic traits, complete genome sequence and central metabolisms of the novel strain ZRK33. Notably, sulfate and thiosulfate could significantly promote the growth of the new isolate, possibly through accelerating the hydrolysis and uptake of saccharides. Thus, this result reveals that strain ZRK33 may play a crucial part in sulfur cycling in the deep-sea environments. Moreover, the putative genes associated with assimilatory and dissimilatory sulfate reduction are broadly distributed in the genomes of 27 metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) from deep-sea cold seep and hydrothermal vents sediments. Together, we propose that the deep marine subsurface Chloroflexi play key roles in sulfur cycling for the first time. This may concomitantly suggest an unsuspected availability of sulfur-containing compounds to allow for the high abundance of Chloroflexi in the deep sea.
Project description:Desulfurella amilsii is an acidotolerant sulfur-reducing bacterium isolated from sediments of an acidic river. It can grow in a broad range of pH and can obtain energy via respiring elemental sulfur or thiosulfate, as well as by disproportionating elemental sulfur. Its genome encodes the enzyme sulfur reductase, and several rhodanese-like proteins, possibly playing a role in sulfur respiration and disproportionation. Thiosulfate reductase and dissimilatory sulfite reductase are encoded and might play a role during the respiration of thiosulfate. The involvement of these enzymes in the reductive routes of sulfur metabolism is not yet clearly understood. Desulfurella amilsii was used in this study to combine strategies for sulfur metabolism research on the protein level to shed some light on the pathways involved in the metabolism of this microorganism.
Project description:Competition among nitrate reducing bacteria (NRB) and sulfate reducing bacteria (SRB) for resources in anoxic environments is generally thought to be governed largely by thermodynamics. It is now recognized that intermediates of nitrogen and sulfur cycling (e.g., hydrogen sulfide, nitrite, etc.) can also directly impact NRB and SRB activities in freshwater, wastewater and sediment, and therefore may play important roles in competitive interactions. Here, using Intrasporangium calvum C5 as a model NRB, we performed comparative transcriptomic and metabolomic analyses to demonstrate that the reduced sulfur compounds cysteine and sulfide differentially inhibit respiratory growth on nitrate, and that inhibition by each can be selectively relieved by a specific carbon source. These findings provide mechanistic insights into the interplay and stratification of NRBs and SRBs in diverse environments.