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Title: Anoxic carbon flux in photosynthetic microbial mats as revealed by metatranscriptomics [Anoxic carbon flux in photosynthetic microbial mats as revealed by metatranscriptomics and NanoSIMS.]

Journal Article · · The ISME Journal
 [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [5];  [5];  [5];  [4];  [6];  [6];  [3];  [7]
  1. Stanford Univ., CA (United States). Dept. of Chemical Engineering and Civil and Environmental Engineering; NASA Ames Research Center (ARC), Moffett Field, Mountain View, CA (United States). Exobiology Branch
  2. Stanford Univ., CA (United States). Dept. of Chemical Engineering and Civil and Environmental Engineering; NASA Ames Research Center (ARC), Moffett Field, Mountain View, CA (United States). Exobiology Branch; Univ. of Vienna (Austria). Dept. of Microbial Ecology
  3. Stanford Univ., CA (United States). Dept. of Chemical Engineering and Civil and Environmental Engineering
  4. USDOE Joint Genome Institute (JGI), Walnut Creek, CA (United States)
  5. NASA Ames Research Center (ARC), Moffett Field, Mountain View, CA (United States). Exobiology Branch
  6. Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States). Physical and Life Sciences Directorate
  7. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). Earth Sciences Division

Photosynthetic microbial mats possess extraordinary phylogenetic and functional diversity that makes linking specific pathways with individual microbial populations a daunting task. Close metabolic and spatial relationships between Cyanobacteria and Chloroflexi have previously been observed in diverse microbial mats. Here in this paper, we report that an expressed metabolic pathway for the anoxic catabolism of photosynthate involving Cyanobacteria and Chloroflexi in microbial mats can be reconstructed through metatranscriptomic sequencing of mats collected at Elkhorn Slough, Monterey Bay, CA, USA. In this reconstruction, Microcoleus spp., the most abundant cyanobacterial group in the mats, ferment photosynthate to organic acids, CO2 and H2 through multiple pathways, and an uncultivated lineage of the Chloroflexi take up these organic acids to store carbon as polyhydroxyalkanoates. The metabolic reconstruction is consistent with metabolite measurements and single cell microbial imaging with fluorescence in situ hybridization and NanoSIMS.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC); German Research Foundation (DFG)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC52-07NA27344; AC02-05CH11231; SCW1039
OSTI ID:
1396201
Report Number(s):
LLNL-JRNL-582972
Journal Information:
The ISME Journal, Vol. 7, Issue 4; ISSN 1751-7362
Publisher:
Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 47 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cyanobacterial diversity in the algal–bacterial consortia from Subarctic regions: new insights from the rock baths at White Sea Coast journal November 2018
From the Cell to the Ecosystem: The Physiological Evolution of Symbiosis journal November 2015
Environmental Controls on CO2 Exchange along a Salinity Gradient in a Saline Boreal Fen in the Athabasca Oil Sands Region journal December 2019
Capturing the genetic makeup of the active microbiome in situ journal June 2017
Photoautotrophic organisms control microbial abundance, diversity, and physiology in different types of biological soil crusts journal February 2018
Multi-species biofilms in ecology, medicine, and biotechnology journal November 2015
Metagenomics reveals niche partitioning within the phototrophic zone of a microbial mat journal September 2018
Metatranscriptomic analysis of a high-sulfide aquatic spring reveals insights into sulfur cycling and unexpected aerobic metabolism journal January 2015
Screening of polyhydroxyalkanoate-producing bacteria and PhaC-encoding genes in two hypersaline microbial mats from Guerrero Negro, Baja California Sur, Mexico journal January 2018
Cyanobacterial reuse of extracellular organic carbon in microbial mats journal October 2015
Dynamics of archaea at fine spatial scales in Shark Bay mat microbiomes journal April 2017
Organismal and spatial partitioning of energy and macronutrient transformations within a hypersaline mat journal March 2017
Microscale sulfur cycling in the phototrophic pink berry consortia of the Sippewissett Salt Marsh: Sulfur cycling in pink berries of the Sippewissett Marsh journal February 2014
Anoxygenic Phototrophs Span Geochemical Gradients and Diverse Morphologies in Terrestrial Geothermal Springs journal December 2019
Permanent draft genome of strain ESFC-1: ecological genomics of a newly discovered lineage of filamentous diazotrophic cyanobacteria journal August 2016
Metagenomic analysis of intertidal hypersaline microbial mats from Elkhorn Slough, California, grown with and without molybdate journal November 2017
Fermentation couples Chloroflexi and sulfate-reducing bacteria to Cyanobacteria in hypersaline microbial mats journal January 2014