Expanded Phylogenetic Diversity and Metabolic Flexibility of Mercury-Methylating Microorganisms

Accurately assessing the production of bioaccumulative neurotoxic methylmercury by characterizing the phylogenetic diversity, metabolic functions, and activity of methylators in the environment is crucial for understanding constraints on the mercury cycle. Much of our understanding of methylmercury...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:mSystems
Main Authors: McDaniel, Elizabeth A., Peterson, Benjamin D., Stevens, Sarah L. R., Tran, Patricia Q., Anantharaman, Karthik, McMahon, Katherine D.
Other Authors: Kent, Angela D., National Science Foundation, DOC | National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: American Society for Microbiology 2020
Subjects:
permafrost
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/msystems.00299-20
https://journals.asm.org/doi/pdf/10.1128/mSystems.00299-20
Description
Summary:Accurately assessing the production of bioaccumulative neurotoxic methylmercury by characterizing the phylogenetic diversity, metabolic functions, and activity of methylators in the environment is crucial for understanding constraints on the mercury cycle. Much of our understanding of methylmercury production is based on cultured anaerobic microorganisms within the Deltaproteobacteria , Firmicutes , and Euryarchaeota. Advances in next-generation sequencing technologies have enabled large-scale cultivation-independent surveys of diverse and poorly characterized microorganisms from numerous ecosystems. We used genome-resolved metagenomics and metatranscriptomics to highlight the vast phylogenetic and metabolic diversity of putative mercury methylators and their depth-discrete activities in thawing permafrost. This work underscores the importance of using genome-resolved metagenomics to survey specific putative methylating populations of a given mercury-impacted ecosystem.

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