Fluctuations in species-level protein expression occur during element and nutrient cycling in the subsurface

Characterizing Natural Organic Matter Transformations by Microbial Communities in Terrestrial Subsurface Ecosystems: A Critical Review of Analytical Techniques and Challenges

Determining the mechanisms, traits, and pathways that regulate microbial transformation of natural organic matter (NOM) is critical to informing our understanding of the microbial impacts on the global carbon cycle. The capillary fringe of subsurface soils is a highly dynamic environment that remains poorly understood. Characterization of organo-mineral chemistry combined with a nuanced understanding of microbial community composition and function is necessary to understand microbial impacts on NOM speciation in the capillary fringe. We present a critical review of the popular analytical and omics techniques used for characterizing complex carbon transformation by microbial communities and focus on how complementary information obtained from the different techniques enable us to connect chemical signatures with microbial genes and pathways. This holistic approach offers a way forward for the comprehensive characterization of the formation, transformation, and mineralization of terrestrial NOM as influenced by microbial communities.

Adaptation of Carbon Source Utilization Patterns of Geobacter metallireducens During Sessile Growth

There are two main strategies known how microorganisms regulate substrate utilization: specialization on one preferred substrate at high concentrations in batch cultures or simultaneous utilization of many substrates at low concentrations in chemostats. However, it remains unclear how microorganisms utilize substrates at low concentrations in the subsurface: do they focus on a single substrate and exhibit catabolite repression or do they de-repress regulation of all catabolic pathways? Here, we investigated the readiness of Geobacter metallireducens to degrade organic substrates under sessile growth in sediment columns in the presence of a mixed community as a model for aquifers. Three parallel columns were filled with sand and flushed with anoxic medium at a constant inflow (18 ml h-1) of the substrate benzoate (1 mM) with non-limiting nitrate concentrations (30 mM) as electron acceptor. Columns were inoculated with the anaerobic benzoate degrader G. metallireducens. Microbial degradation produced concentration gradients of benzoate toward the column outlet. Metagenomics and label-free metaproteomics were used to detect and quantify the protein expression of G. metallireducens. Bulk benzoate concentrations below 0.2 mM led to increased abundance of catabolic proteins involved in utilization of fermentation products and aromatic compounds including the complete upregulation of the toluene-degrading pathway although toluene was not added to the medium. We propose that under sessile conditions and low substrate concentrations G. metallireducens expresses a specific set of catabolic pathways for preferred substrates, even when these substrates are not present.

Potential for Methanosarcina to Contribute to Uranium Reduction during Acetate-Promoted Groundwater Bioremediation

Previous studies of acetate-promoted bioremediation of uranium-contaminated aquifers focused on Geobacter because no other microorganisms that can couple the oxidation of acetate with U(VI) reduction had been detected in situ. Monitoring the levels of methyl CoM reductase subunit A (mcrA) transcripts during an acetate-injection field experiment demonstrated that acetoclastic methanogens from the genus Methanosarcina were enriched after 40 days of acetate amendment. The increased abundance of Methanosarcina corresponded with an accumulation of methane in the groundwater. In order to determine whether Methanosarcina species could be participating in U(VI) reduction in the subsurface, cell suspensions of Methanosarcina barkeri were incubated in the presence of U(VI) with acetate provided as the electron donor. U(VI) was reduced by metabolically active M. barkeri cells; however, no U(VI) reduction was observed in inactive controls. These results demonstrate that Methanosarcina species could play an important role in the long-term bioremediation of uranium-contaminated aquifers after depletion of Fe(III) oxides limits the growth of Geobacter species. The results also suggest that Methanosarcina have the potential to influence uranium geochemistry in a diversity of anaerobic sedimentary environments.

Thousands of microbial genomes shed light on interconnected biogeochemical processes in an aquifer system

The subterranean world hosts up to one-fifth of all biomass, including microbial communities that drive transformations central to Earth's biogeochemical cycles. However, little is known about how complex microbial communities in such environments are structured, and how inter-organism interactions shape ecosystem function. Here we apply terabase-scale cultivation-independent metagenomics to aquifer sediments and groundwater, and reconstruct 2,540 draft-quality, near-complete and complete strain-resolved genomes that represent the majority of known bacterial phyla as well as 47 newly discovered phylum-level lineages. Metabolic analyses spanning this vast phylogenetic diversity and representing up to 36% of organisms detected in the system are used to document the distribution of pathways in coexisting organisms. Consistent with prior findings indicating metabolic handoffs in simple consortia, we find that few organisms within the community can conduct multiple sequential redox transformations. As environmental conditions change, different assemblages of organisms are selected for, altering linkages among the major biogeochemical cycles.

Environmental Microbial Community Proteomics: Status, Challenges and Perspectives

Microbial community proteomics, also termed metaproteomics, is an emerging field within the area of microbiology, which studies the entire protein complement recovered directly from a complex environmental microbial community at a given point in time. Although it is still in its infancy, microbial community proteomics has shown its powerful potential in exploring microbial diversity, metabolic potential, ecological function and microbe-environment interactions. In this paper, we review recent advances achieved in microbial community proteomics conducted in diverse environments, such as marine and freshwater, sediment and soil, activated sludge, acid mine drainage biofilms and symbiotic communities. The challenges facing microbial community proteomics are also discussed, and we believe that microbial community proteomics will greatly enhance our understanding of the microbial world and its interactions with the environment.

Status of the Archaeal and Bacterial Census: an Update

A census is typically carried out for people across a range of geographical levels; however, microbial ecologists have implemented a molecular census of bacteria and archaea by sequencing their 16S rRNA genes. We assessed how well the census of full-length 16S rRNA gene sequences is proceeding in the context of recent advances in high-throughput sequencing technologies because full-length sequences are typically used as references for classification of the short sequences generated by newer technologies. Among the 1,411,234 and 53,546 full-length bacterial and archaeal sequences, 94.5% and 95.1% of the bacterial and archaeal sequences, respectively, belonged to operational taxonomic units (OTUs) that have been observed more than once. Although these metrics suggest that the census is approaching completion, 29.2% of the bacterial and 38.5% of the archaeal OTUs have been observed more than once. Thus, there is still considerable diversity to be explored. Unfortunately, the rate of new full-length sequences has been declining, and new sequences are primarily being deposited by a small number of studies. Furthermore, sequences from soil and aquatic environments, which are known to be rich in bacterial diversity, represent only 7.8 and 16.5% of the census, while sequences associated with host-associated environments represent 55.0% of the census. Continued use of traditional approaches and new technologies such as single-cell genomics and short-read assembly are likely to improve our ability to sample rare OTUs if it is possible to overcome this sampling bias. The success of ongoing efforts to use short-read sequencing to characterize archaeal and bacterial communities requires that researchers strive to expand the depth and breadth of this census.

The biodiversity contained within the bacterial and archaeal domains dwarfs that of the eukaryotes, and the services these organisms provide to the biosphere are critical. Surprisingly, we have done a relatively poor job of formally tracking the quality of the biodiversity as represented in full-length 16S rRNA genes. By understanding how this census is proceeding, it is possible to suggest the best allocation of resources for advancing the census. We found that the ongoing effort has done an excellent job of sampling the most abundant organisms but struggles to sample the rarer organisms. Through the use of new sequencing technologies, we should be able to obtain full-length sequences from these rare organisms. Furthermore, we suggest that by allocating more resources to sampling environments known to have the greatest biodiversity, we will be able to make significant advances in our characterization of archaeal and bacterial diversity.

Impact of Organic Carbon Electron Donors on Microbial Community Development under Iron- and Sulfate-Reducing Conditions

Although iron- and sulfate-reducing bacteria in subsurface environments have crucial roles in biogeochemical cycling of C, Fe, and S, how specific electron donors impact the compositional structure and activity of native iron- and/or sulfate-reducing communities is largely unknown. To understand this better, we created bicarbonate-buffered batch systems in duplicate with three different electron donors (acetate, lactate, or glucose) paired with ferrihydrite and sulfate as the electron acceptors and inoculated them with subsurface sediment as the microbial inoculum. Sulfate and ferrihydrite reduction occurred simultaneously and were faster with lactate than with acetate. 16S rRNA-based sequence analysis of the communities over time revealed that Desulfotomaculum was the major driver for sulfate reduction coupled with propionate oxidation in lactate-amended incubations. The reduction of sulfate resulted in sulfide production and subsequent abiotic reduction of ferrihydrite. In contrast, glucose promoted faster reduction of ferrihydrite, but without reduction of sulfate. Interestingly, the glucose-amended incubations led to two different biogeochemical trajectories among replicate bottles that resulted in distinct coloration (white and brown). The two outcomes in geochemical evolution might be due to the stochastic evolution of the microbial communities or subtle differences in the initial composition of the fermenting microbial community and its development via the use of different glucose fermentation pathways available within the community. Synchrotron-based x-ray analysis indicated that siderite and amorphous Fe(II) were formed in the replicate bottles with glucose, while ferrous sulfide and vivianite were formed with lactate or acetate. These data sets reveal that use of different C utilization pathways projects significant changes in microbial community composition over time that uniquely impact both the geochemistry and mineralogy of subsurface environments.

Proteomic tools to decipher microbial community structure and functioning

Recent advances in microbial ecology allow studying microorganisms in their environment, without laboratory cultivation, in order to get access to the large uncultivable microbial community. With this aim, environmental proteomics has emerged as an appropriate complementary approach to metagenomics providing information on key players that carry out main metabolic functions and addressing the adaptation capacities of living organisms in situ. In this review, a wide range of proteomic approaches applied to investigate the structure and functioning of microbial communities as well as recent examples of such studies are presented.

Functional environmental proteomics: elucidating the role of a c-type cytochrome abundant during uranium bioremediation

Studies with pure cultures of dissimilatory metal-reducing microorganisms have demonstrated that outer-surface c-type cytochromes are important electron transfer agents for the reduction of metals, but previous environmental proteomic studies have typically not recovered cytochrome sequences from subsurface environments in which metal reduction is important. Gel-separation, heme-staining and mass spectrometry of proteins in groundwater from in situ uranium bioremediation experiments identified a putative c-type cytochrome, designated Geobacter subsurface c-type cytochrome A (GscA), encoded within the genome of strain M18, a Geobacter isolate previously recovered from the site. Homologs of GscA were identified in the genomes of other Geobacter isolates in the phylogenetic cluster known as subsurface clade 1, which predominates in a diversity of Fe(III)-reducing subsurface environments. Most of the gscA sequences recovered from groundwater genomic DNA clustered in a tight phylogenetic group closely related to strain M18. GscA was most abundant in groundwater samples in which Geobacter sp. predominated. Expression of gscA in a strain of Geobacter sulfurreducens that lacked the gene for the c-type cytochrome OmcS, thought to facilitate electron transfer from conductive pili to Fe(III) oxide, restored the capacity for Fe(III) oxide reduction. Atomic force microscopy provided evidence that GscA was associated with the pili. These results demonstrate that a c-type cytochrome with an apparent function similar to that of OmcS is abundant when Geobacter sp. are abundant in the subsurface, providing insight into the mechanisms for the growth of subsurface Geobacter sp. on Fe(III) oxide and suggesting an approach for functional analysis of other Geobacter proteins found in the subsurface.

Changes in protein expression across laboratory and field experiments in Geobacter bemidjiensis

Bacterial extracellular metal respiration, as carried out by members of the genus Geobacter, is of interest for applications including microbial fuel cells and bioremediation. Geobacter bemidjiensis is the major species whose growth is stimulated during groundwater amendment with acetate. We have carried out label-free proteomics studies of G. bemidjiensis grown with acetate as the electron donor and either fumarate, ferric citrate, or one of two hydrous ferric oxide mineral types as electron acceptor. The major class of proteins whose expression changes across these conditions is c-type cytochromes, many of which are known to be involved in extracellular metal reduction in other, better-characterized Geobacter species. Some proteins with multiple homologues in G. bemidjiensis (OmcS, OmcB) had different expression patterns than observed for their G. sulfurreducens homologues under similar growth conditions. We also compared the proteome from our study to a prior proteomics study of biomass recovered from an aquifer in Colorado, where the microbial community was dominated by strains closely related to G. bemidjiensis. We detected an increased number of proteins with functions related to motility and chemotaxis in the Colorado field samples compared to the laboratory samples, suggesting the importance of motility for in situ extracellular metal respiration.

Metabolic interdependencies between phylogenetically novel fermenters and respiratory organisms in an unconfined aquifer

Fermentation-based metabolism is an important ecosystem function often associated with environments rich in organic carbon, such as wetlands, sewage sludge and the mammalian gut. The diversity of microorganisms and pathways involved in carbon and hydrogen cycling in sediments and aquifers and the impacts of these processes on other biogeochemical cycles remain poorly understood. Here we used metagenomics and proteomics to characterize microbial communities sampled from an aquifer adjacent to the Colorado River at Rifle, CO, USA, and document interlinked microbial roles in geochemical cycling. The organic carbon content in the aquifer was elevated via acetate amendment of the groundwater occurring over 2 successive years. Samples were collected at three time points, with the objective of extensive genome recovery to enable metabolic reconstruction of the community. Fermentative community members include organisms from a new phylum, Melainabacteria, most closely related to Cyanobacteria, phylogenetically novel members of the Chloroflexi and Bacteroidales, as well as candidate phyla genomes (OD1, BD1-5, SR1, WWE3, ACD58, TM6, PER and OP11). These organisms have the capacity to produce hydrogen, acetate, formate, ethanol, butyrate and lactate, activities supported by proteomic data. The diversity and expression of hydrogenases suggests the importance of hydrogen metabolism in the subsurface. Our proteogenomic data further indicate the consumption of fermentation intermediates by Proteobacteria can be coupled to nitrate, sulfate and iron reduction. Thus, fermentation carried out by previously unknown members of sediment microbial communities may be an important driver of nitrogen, hydrogen, sulfur, carbon and iron cycling.

Single-cell genomics reveals metabolic strategies for microbial growth and survival in an oligotrophic aquifer

Bacteria from the genus Pedobacter are a major component of microbial assemblages at Hanford Site (a largely decommissioned nuclear production complex) in eastern Washington state, USA, and have been shown to change significantly in abundance in response to the subsurface intrusion of Columbia River water. Here we employed single-cell genomics techniques to shed light on the physiological niche of these micro-organisms. Analysis of four Pedobacter single amplified genomes (SAGs) from Hanford Site sediments revealed a chemoheterotrophic lifestyle, with the potential to exist under both aerobic and microaerophilic conditions via expression of both aa3-type and cbb3-type cytochrome c oxidases. These SAGs encoded a wide range of both intra- and extracellular carbohydrate-active enzymes, potentially enabling the degradation of recalcitrant substrates such as xylan and chitin, and the utilization of more labile sugars such as mannose and fucose. Coupled to these enzymes, a diversity of transporters and sugar-binding molecules were involved in the uptake of carbon from the extracellular local environment. The SAGs were enriched in TonB-dependent receptors, which play a key role in uptake of substrates resulting from degradation of recalcitrant carbon. Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat (CRISPR)-Cas mechanisms for resisting viral infections were identified in all SAGs. These data demonstrate the potential mechanisms utilized for persistence by heterotrophic micro-organisms in a carbon-limited aquifer, and hint at potential linkages between observed Pedobacter abundance shifts within the 300 Area (in the south-eastern corner of the site) subsurface and biogeochemical shifts associated with Columbia River water intrusion.