Microbial Observatories: Evolution and Diversity of Biochemical Pathways: A Methylotrophic Microbial Observatory

博士们已获得一笔赠款。华盛顿大学的Mary Lidstrom和Ludmila Chistoserdova研究了一种对环境很重要的细菌群的多样性，这些细菌生长在含有一个碳的简单化合物上。这些被称为甲基营养体的细菌已经发展出独特的生化途径，使它们能够在甲烷（天然气）、甲醇（木醇）等化合物以及各种大气污染物（如溴甲烷和氯甲烷）上生长。迄今为止的证据表明，这些生化途径是通过从其他细菌中借用基因的组合而进化的，并创造了甲基化的新特征。该项目将采用的方法是以比较的方式使用甲基营养细菌和其他细菌的少数已知基因组序列，以了解这些细菌的共同和独特方面。将研究实验室培养物和来自环境的甲基养生物的自然种群，以最大限度地提高采样的多样性，并对未培养的环境甲基养生物的部分基因组进行鉴定和测序。这项工作将提供对自然栖息地中负责单碳化合物循环的复杂群落的见解。这些细菌在保持自然栖息地的健康和繁荣方面发挥着重要作用，此外，它们是地球上许多导致全球变暖的化合物的主要消费者。了解哪些甲基营养体存在于特定环境中，并将这些信息与它们的自然作用联系起来，是对自然资源利用与全球变暖等全球条件之间的关系进行准确预测的重要一步。此外，将进行的比较基因组学研究将为专门代谢途径的进化提供见解。这些进化方法对于实现从基因组序列到理解细胞如何工作的飞跃非常重要。

A grant has been awarded to Drs. Mary Lidstrom and Ludmila Chistoserdova at the University of Washington to investigate the breadth of diversity in an environmentally important group of bacteria, those that grow on simple compounds containing one carbon. These bacteria, called methylotrophs, have developed unique biochemical pathways that allow them to grow on compounds such as methane (natural gas), methanol (wood alcohol), and a variety of atmospheric pollutants such as bromomethane and chloromethane. Evidence to date suggests that these biochemical pathways evolved through a combination of borrowing genes from other bacteria and creating new traits specific to methylotrophy. The approach that will be taken in this project is to use the few known genome sequences for methylotrophic bacteria and other bacteria in a comparative way to develop an understanding of the shared and unique aspects of these bacteria. Both laboratory cultures and natural populations of methylotrophs from the environment will be studied, to maximize the diversity that is sampled, and partial genomes from uncultured environmental methylotrophs will be identified and sequenced. This work will provide insights into the complex communities in natural habitats that are responsible for the cycling of one-carbon compounds. These bacteria play an important role in keeping natural habitats healthy and thriving, and in addition they are the main consumers on earth of a number of compounds that contribute to global warming. Understanding which methylotrophs are present in specific environments and relating such information to their natural roles is an important step in developing accurate predictions regarding the relationship between natural resource utilization and global conditions such as global warming. In addition, the comparative genomics studies that will be carried out will provide insights into the evolution of specialized metabolic pathways. These evolutionary approaches are important for making the leap from genome sequences to understanding how cells work.