Discovery of an Abundance of Biosynthetic Gene Clusters in Shark Bay Microbial Mats
Discovery of an Abundance of Biosynthetic Gene Clusters in Shark Bay Microbial Mats
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DOI：
10.3389/fmicb.2020.01950
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发表时间：
2020-08-21
影响因子：
5.2
通讯作者：
Burns, Brendan P.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Chen, Ray;Wong, Hon Lun;Burns, Brendan P.
微生物垫是地球生物学上的多层生态系统，对理解地球早期生命的进化具有重要的进化价值。澳大利亚的鲨鱼湾有一些现代微生物垫在高温，盐度，干燥和紫外线（UV）辐射的恶劣条件下蓬勃发展的最佳例子。生活在极端生态系统中的微生物被认为可能编码次级代谢物作为一种生存策略。许多次级代谢产物是由称为生物合成基因簇（BGC）的一组基因编码的天然产物。天然产物具有不同的化学结构和功能，为微生物提供了竞争优势，也可用于生物技术。本研究首次详细地描述了位于深圳沙湾畔的BGC微生物垫的多样性。在20 mm垫深度水平上的宏基因组数据中检测到总共1477个BGC，其中表面层拥有超过200个BGC并且包含所有垫层中最高的BGC相对丰度。萜烯和细菌素BGC具有高度代表性，它们的天然产物在这些垫系统的生态系统功能中发挥着重要作用。有趣的是，从Heimdallarchaeota和Lokiarchaeota中检测到了潜在的新型BGC，这两个进化上重要的古菌门以前不知道拥有BGC。这项研究为BGC的次级代谢产物如何使不同的微生物垫群落适应极端环境提供了新的见解。
Microbial mats are geobiological multilayered ecosystems that have significant evolutionary value in understanding the evolution of early life on Earth. Shark Bay, Australia has some of the best examples of modern microbial mats thriving under harsh conditions of high temperatures, salinity, desiccation, and ultraviolet (UV) radiation. Microorganisms living in extreme ecosystems are thought to potentially encode for secondary metabolites as a survival strategy. Many secondary metabolites are natural products encoded by a grouping of genes known as biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs). Natural products have diverse chemical structures and functions which provide competitive advantages for microorganisms and can also have biotechnology applications. In the present study, the diversity of BGC were described in detail for the first time from Shark Bay microbial mats. A total of 1477 BGCs were detected in metagenomic data over a 20 mm mat depth horizon, with the surface layer possessing over 200 BGCs and containing the highest relative abundance of BGCs of all mat layers. Terpene and bacteriocin BGCs were highly represented and their natural products are proposed to have important roles in ecosystem function in these mat systems. Interestingly, potentially novel BGCs were detected from Heimdallarchaeota and Lokiarchaeota, two evolutionarily significant archaeal phyla not previously known to possess BGCs. This study provides new insights into how secondary metabolites from BGCs may enable diverse microbial mat communities to adapt to extreme environments.