Project description:The hydrothermal vent gammaproteobacterium Thiomicrospira crunogena inhabits an unstable environment and must endure dramatic sweeps in habitat chemistry. This sulfur chemolithoautotroph responds to changes in dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC; = CO2 + HCO3- + CO3-2) availability with a carbon concentrating mechanism (CCM), in which whole-cell affinity for DIC, as well as the intracellular DIC concentration, increase substantially under DIC-limitation. To determine whether this CCM is regulated at the level of transcription, cells cultivated under high-DIC conditions in chemostats were resuspended in growth medium with low concentrations of DIC, and CCM development was tracked in the presence and absence of RNA polymerase inhibitor rifampicin. The induction of the CCM, as measured by silicone oil centrifugation, was hindered in the presence of rifampicin. Similar results were observed for carboxysome gene transcription and assembly, as assayed by qRT-PCR and transmission electron microscopy, respectively. Genome-wide transcription patterns, assayed via microarrays, were compared for cells grown under DIC-limitation versus ammonia limitation. In addition to carboxysome genes, two novel genes (Tcr_1019 and Tcr_1315), present in other organisms including chemolithoautotrophs, but whose function(s) have not been elucidated in any organism, were found to be upregulated under low-DIC conditions. Likewise, under ammonia limitation, in addition to the expected enhancement of ammonia transporter and PII-gene transcription, the transcription of two novel genes was measurably enhanced (Tcr_0466 and Tcr_2018). Upregulation of all four genes was verified via qRT-PCR (Tcr_1019: 4-fold; Tcr_1315: ~7-fold; Tcr_0466: >200-fold; Tcr_2018: 7-fold), suggesting novel components are part of the response to nutrient limitation by this organism. In this study Thiomicrospira crunogena cells were grown under inorganic carbon limitation and ammonia limitation (high inorganic carbon concentrations) to examine genome wide transcription responses
Project description:Land cover change has long been recognized that marked effect the amount of soil organic carbon. However, little is known about microbial-mediated effect processes and mechanism on soil organic carbon. In this study, the soil samples in a degenerated succession from alpine meadow to alpine steppe meadow in Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau degenerated, were analyzed by using GeoChip functional gene arrays.
Project description:The response of soil microbial community to climate warming through both function shift and composition reorganization may profoundly influence global nutrient cycles, leading to potential significant carbon release from the terrain to the atmosphere. Despite the observed carbon flux change in northern permafrost, it remains unclear how soil microbial community contributes to this ecosystem alteration. Here, we applied microarray-based GeoChip 4.0 to investigate the functional and compositional response of subsurface (15~25cm) soil microbial community under about one year’s artificial heating (+2°C) in the Carbon in Permafrost Experimental Heating Research site on Alaska’s moist acidic tundra. Statistical analyses of GeoChip signal intensities showed significant microbial function shift in AK samples. Detrended correspondence analysis and dissimilarity tests (MRPP and ANOSIM) indicated significant functional structure difference between the warmed and the control communities. ANOVA revealed that 60% of the 70 detected individual genes in carbon, nitrogen, phosphorous and sulfur cyclings were substantially increased (p<0.05) by heating. 18 out of 33 detected carbon degradation genes were more abundant in warming samples in AK site, regardless of the discrepancy of labile or recalcitrant C, indicating a high temperature sensitivity of carbon degradation genes in rich carbon pool environment. These results demonstrated a rapid response of northern permafrost soil microbial community to warming. Considering the large carbon storage in northern permafrost region, microbial activity in this region may cause dramatic positive feedback to climate change, which is important and necessary to be integrated into climate change models.
Project description:Fire disturbances are becoming more common, more intense, and further-reaching across the globe, with consequences for ecosystem functioning. Importantly, fire can have strong effects on the soil microbiome, including community and functional changes after fire, but surprisingly little is known regarding the role of soil fire legacy in shaping responses to recent fire. To address this gap, we conducted a manipulative field experiment administering fire across 32 soils with varying fire legacies, including combinations of 1-7 historic fires and 1-33 years since most recent fire. We analyzed soil metatranscriptomes, determining for the first time how fire and fire legacy interactively affect metabolically-active soil taxa, the microbial regulation of important carbon (C), nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) cycling, expression of carbohydrate-cycling enzyme pathways, and functional gene co-expression networks. Experimental fire strongly downregulated fungal activity while upregulating many bacterial and archaeal phyla. Further, fire decreased soil capacity for microbial C and N cycling and P transport, and drastically rewired functional gene co-expression. Perhaps most importantly, we highlight a novel role of soil fire legacy in regulation of microbial C, N, and P responses to recent fire. We observed a greater number of functional genes responsive to the interactive effects of fire and fire legacy than those affected solely by recent fire, indicating that many functional genes respond to fire only under certain fire legacy contexts. Therefore, without incorporating fire legacy of soils, studies will miss important ways that fire shapes microbial roles in ecosystem functioning. Finally, we showed that fire caused significant downregulation of carbon metabolism and nutrient cycling genes in microbiomes under abnormal soil fire histories, producing a novel warning for the future: human manipulation of fire legacies, either indirectly through global change-induced fire intensification or directly through fire suppression, can negatively impact soil microbiome functional responses to new fires.
Project description:The hydrothermal vent gammaproteobacterium Thiomicrospira crunogena inhabits an unstable environment and must endure dramatic sweeps in habitat chemistry. This sulfur chemolithoautotroph responds to changes in dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC; = CO2 + HCO3- + CO3-2) availability with a carbon concentrating mechanism (CCM), in which whole-cell affinity for DIC, as well as the intracellular DIC concentration, increase substantially under DIC-limitation. To determine whether this CCM is regulated at the level of transcription, cells cultivated under high-DIC conditions in chemostats were resuspended in growth medium with low concentrations of DIC, and CCM development was tracked in the presence and absence of RNA polymerase inhibitor rifampicin. The induction of the CCM, as measured by silicone oil centrifugation, was hindered in the presence of rifampicin. Similar results were observed for carboxysome gene transcription and assembly, as assayed by qRT-PCR and transmission electron microscopy, respectively. Genome-wide transcription patterns, assayed via microarrays, were compared for cells grown under DIC-limitation versus ammonia limitation. In addition to carboxysome genes, two novel genes (Tcr_1019 and Tcr_1315), present in other organisms including chemolithoautotrophs, but whose function(s) have not been elucidated in any organism, were found to be upregulated under low-DIC conditions. Likewise, under ammonia limitation, in addition to the expected enhancement of ammonia transporter and PII-gene transcription, the transcription of two novel genes was measurably enhanced (Tcr_0466 and Tcr_2018). Upregulation of all four genes was verified via qRT-PCR (Tcr_1019: 4-fold; Tcr_1315: ~7-fold; Tcr_0466: >200-fold; Tcr_2018: 7-fold), suggesting novel components are part of the response to nutrient limitation by this organism.
Project description:Tracing autotroph and heterotroph photosynthetic catalytic carbon cycling within a microbial mat, confirming biomass 13C incorporation into extracellular polymeric substances through proteomics.
Project description:Anthropogenic nitrogen (N) deposition may affect soil organic carbon (SOC) decomposition, thus affecting the global terrestrial carbon (C) cycle. However, it remains unclear how the level of N deposition affects SOC decomposition by regulating microbial community composition and function, especially C-cycling functional genes structure. We investigated the effects of short-term N addition on soil microbial C-cycling functional gene composition, SOC-degrading enzyme activities, and CO2 emission in a 5-year field experiment established in an artificial Pinus tabulaeformis forest on the Loess Plateau, China.
Project description:DNA samples of G. fascicularis were used to investigate the GeoChip 5.0 based functional gene arrays, which contains 57,000 probes and covered over 144,000 gene sequences from 393 functional gene families associated with a variety of microbial functional traits, such as carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, sulfur cycling, pathogenicity and secondary metabolism.