Borgs are giant genetic elements with potential to expand metabolic capacity

Al-Shayeb, Basem; Schoelmerich, Marie C.; West-Roberts, Jacob; Valentin-Alvarado, Luis E.; Sachdeva, Rohan; Mullen, Susan; Crits-Christoph, Alexander; Wilkins, Michael J.; Williams, Kenneth H.; Doudna, Jennifer A.; Banfield, Jillian F.

doi:10.1038/s41586-022-05256-1

Borgs are giant genetic elements with potential to expand metabolic capacity

Journal Article · Wed Oct 19 00:00:00 EDT 2022 · Nature (London)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05256-1· OSTI ID:1992462

Al-Shayeb, Basem ^[1]; Schoelmerich, Marie C. ^[1]; West-Roberts, Jacob ^[1]; ^[1]; Sachdeva, Rohan ^[1]; Mullen, Susan ^[1]; Crits-Christoph, Alexander ^[1]; ^[2]; Williams, Kenneth H. ^[3]; ^[1]; ^[4]

Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States)
Colorado State Univ., Fort Collins, CO (United States)
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Rocky Mountain Biological Lab, Gothic, CO (United States)
Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States); Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Univ. of Melbourne, VIC (Australia)

Anaerobic methane oxidation exerts a key control on greenhouse gas emissions1, yet factors that modulate the activity of microorganisms performing this function remain poorly understood. Here we discovered extraordinarily large, diverse DNA sequences that primarily encode hypothetical proteins through studying groundwater, sediments and wetland soil where methane production and oxidation occur. Four curated, complete genomes are linear, up to approximately 1 Mb in length and share genome organization, including replichore structure, long inverted terminal repeats and genome-wide unique perfect tandem direct repeats that are intergenic or generate amino acid repeats. We infer that these are highly divergent archaeal extrachromosomal elements with a distinct evolutionary origin. Gene sequence similarity, phylogeny and local divergence of sequence composition indicate that many of their genes were assimilated from methane-oxidizing Methanoperedens archaea. We refer to these elements as ‘Borgs’. We identified at least 19 different Borg types coexisting with Methanoperedens spp. in four distinct ecosystems. Borgs provide methane-oxidizing Methanoperedens archaea access to genes encoding proteins involved in redox reactions and energy conservation (for example, clusters of multihaem cytochromes and methyl coenzyme M reductase). These data suggest that Borgs might have previously unrecognized roles in the metabolism of this group of archaea, which are known to modulate greenhouse gas emissions, but further studies are now needed to establish their functional relevance.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC02-05CH11231

OSTI ID:: 1992462

Journal Information:: Nature (London), Journal Name: Nature (London) Journal Issue: 7933 Vol. 610; ISSN 0028-0836

Publisher:: Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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