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Methanogens Within a High Salinity Oil Reservoir From the Gulf of Mexico

Oil reservoirs contain microbial populations that are both autochthonously and allochthonously introduced by industrial development. These microbial populations are greatly influenced by external factors including, but not limited to, salinity and temperature. In this study, we used metagenomics to...

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Autores principales: Christman, Glenn D., León-Zayas, Rosa I., Summers, Zarath M., Biddle, Jennifer F.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7530209/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33042074
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2020.570714
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author Christman, Glenn D.
León-Zayas, Rosa I.
Summers, Zarath M.
Biddle, Jennifer F.
author_facet Christman, Glenn D.
León-Zayas, Rosa I.
Summers, Zarath M.
Biddle, Jennifer F.
author_sort Christman, Glenn D.
collection PubMed
description Oil reservoirs contain microbial populations that are both autochthonously and allochthonously introduced by industrial development. These microbial populations are greatly influenced by external factors including, but not limited to, salinity and temperature. In this study, we used metagenomics to examine the microbial populations within five wells of the same hydrocarbon reservoir system in the Gulf of Mexico. These elevated salinity (149–181 ppt salinity, 4–5× salinity of seawater) reservoirs have limited taxonomic and functional microbial diversity dominated by methanogens, Halanaerobium and other Firmicutes lineages, and contained less abundant lineages such as Deltaproteobacteria. Metagenome assembled genomes (MAGs) were generated and analyzed from the various wells. Methanogen MAGs were closely related to Methanohalophilus euhalobius, a known methylotrophic methanogen from a high salinity oil environment. Based on metabolic reconstruction of genomes, the Halanaerobium perform glycine betaine fermentation, potentially produced by the methanogens. Industrial introduction of methanol to prevent methane hydrate formation to this environment is likely to be consumed by these methanogens. As such, this subsurface oil population may represent influences from industrial processes.
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spelling pubmed-75302092020-10-09 Methanogens Within a High Salinity Oil Reservoir From the Gulf of Mexico Christman, Glenn D. León-Zayas, Rosa I. Summers, Zarath M. Biddle, Jennifer F. Front Microbiol Microbiology Oil reservoirs contain microbial populations that are both autochthonously and allochthonously introduced by industrial development. These microbial populations are greatly influenced by external factors including, but not limited to, salinity and temperature. In this study, we used metagenomics to examine the microbial populations within five wells of the same hydrocarbon reservoir system in the Gulf of Mexico. These elevated salinity (149–181 ppt salinity, 4–5× salinity of seawater) reservoirs have limited taxonomic and functional microbial diversity dominated by methanogens, Halanaerobium and other Firmicutes lineages, and contained less abundant lineages such as Deltaproteobacteria. Metagenome assembled genomes (MAGs) were generated and analyzed from the various wells. Methanogen MAGs were closely related to Methanohalophilus euhalobius, a known methylotrophic methanogen from a high salinity oil environment. Based on metabolic reconstruction of genomes, the Halanaerobium perform glycine betaine fermentation, potentially produced by the methanogens. Industrial introduction of methanol to prevent methane hydrate formation to this environment is likely to be consumed by these methanogens. As such, this subsurface oil population may represent influences from industrial processes. Frontiers Media S.A. 2020-09-18 /pmc/articles/PMC7530209/ /pubmed/33042074 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2020.570714 Text en Copyright © 2020 Christman, León-Zayas, Summers and Biddle. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Microbiology
Christman, Glenn D.
León-Zayas, Rosa I.
Summers, Zarath M.
Biddle, Jennifer F.
Methanogens Within a High Salinity Oil Reservoir From the Gulf of Mexico
title Methanogens Within a High Salinity Oil Reservoir From the Gulf of Mexico
title_full Methanogens Within a High Salinity Oil Reservoir From the Gulf of Mexico
title_fullStr Methanogens Within a High Salinity Oil Reservoir From the Gulf of Mexico
title_full_unstemmed Methanogens Within a High Salinity Oil Reservoir From the Gulf of Mexico
title_short Methanogens Within a High Salinity Oil Reservoir From the Gulf of Mexico
title_sort methanogens within a high salinity oil reservoir from the gulf of mexico
topic Microbiology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7530209/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33042074
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2020.570714
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