Snow microbiome functional analyses reveal novel aspects of microbial metabolism of complex organic compounds

• Published in: MicrobiologyOpen
• Main Authors: Chengsheng Zhu, Maximilian Miller, Nicholas Lusskin, Benoît Bergk Pinto, Lorrie Maccario, Max Häggblom, Timothy Vogel, Catherine Larose, Yana Bromberg
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2020
• Subjects: metagenome; metatranscriptome; mi‐faser; snow microbiome; Microbiology; QR1-502; Norway; Svalbard
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1002/mbo3.1100; https://doaj.org/article/5c7fdaa8c3bd4b2ba40d90c68f0a7e0f

Abstract Microbes active in extreme cold are not as well explored as those of other extreme environments. Studies have revealed a substantial microbial diversity and identified cold‐specific microbiome molecular functions. We analyzed the metagenomes and metatranscriptomes of 20 snow samples collected in early and late spring in Svalbard, Norway using mi‐faser, our read‐based computational microbiome function annotation tool. Our results reveal a more diverse microbiome functional capacity and activity in the early‐ vs. late‐spring samples. We also find that functional dissimilarity between the same‐sample metagenomes and metatranscriptomes is significantly higher in early than late spring samples. These findings suggest that early spring samples may contain a larger fraction of DNA of dormant (or dead) organisms, while late spring samples reflect a new, metabolically active community. We further show that the abundance of sequencing reads mapping to the fatty acid synthesis‐related microbial pathways in late spring metagenomes and metatranscriptomes is significantly correlated with the organic acid levels measured in these samples. Similarly, the organic acid levels correlate with the pathway read abundances of geraniol degradation and inversely correlate with those of styrene degradation, suggesting a possible nutrient change. Our study thus highlights the activity of microbial degradation pathways of complex organic compounds previously unreported at low temperatures.