Structure and function of the Arctic and Antarctic marine microbiota as revealed by metagenomics

Abstract Background The Arctic and Antarctic are the two most geographically distant bioregions on earth. Recent sampling efforts and following metagenomics have shed light on the global ocean microbial diversity and function, yet the microbiota of polar regions has not been included in such global...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Microbiome
Main Authors: Weipeng Zhang, Shunan Cao, Wei Ding, Meng Wang, Shen Fan, Bo Yang, Andrew Mcminn, Min Wang, Bin-bin Xie, Qi-Long Qin, Xiu-Lan Chen, Jianfeng He, Yu-Zhong Zhang
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: BMC 2020
Subjects:
Global ocean microbiome
Arctic and Antarctic zones
Environmental adaptation
Microbial ecology
QR100-130
Antarctic
Arctic
The Antarctic
Antarc*
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1186/s40168-020-00826-9
https://doaj.org/article/46b6d3bb288944eaa31134b13558ccb4
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Summary:Abstract Background The Arctic and Antarctic are the two most geographically distant bioregions on earth. Recent sampling efforts and following metagenomics have shed light on the global ocean microbial diversity and function, yet the microbiota of polar regions has not been included in such global analyses. Results Here a metagenomic study of seawater samples (n = 60) collected from different depths at 28 locations in the Arctic and Antarctic zones was performed, together with metagenomes from the Tara Oceans. More than 7500 (19%) polar seawater-derived operational taxonomic units could not be identified in the Tara Oceans datasets, and more than 3,900,000 protein-coding gene orthologs had no hits in the Ocean Microbial Reference Gene Catalog. Analysis of 214 metagenome assembled genomes (MAGs) recovered from the polar seawater microbiomes, revealed strains that are prevalent in the polar regions while nearly undetectable in temperate seawater. Metabolic pathway reconstruction for these microbes suggested versatility for saccharide and lipids biosynthesis, nitrate and sulfate reduction, and CO2 fixation. Comparison between the Arctic and Antarctic microbiomes revealed that antibiotic resistance genes were enriched in the Arctic while functions like DNA recombination were enriched in the Antarctic. Conclusions Our data highlight the occurrence of dominant and locally enriched microbes in the Arctic and Antarctic seawater with unique functional traits for environmental adaption, and provide a foundation for analyzing the global ocean microbiome in a more complete perspective. Video abstract.

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