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Diverse Methylmercury (MeHg) Producers and Degraders Inhabit Acid Mine Drainage Sediments, but Few Taxa Correlate with MeHg Accumulation

Methylmercury (MeHg) is a notorious neurotoxin, and its production and degradation in the environment are mainly driven by microorganisms. A variety of microbial MeHg producers carrying the gene pair hgcAB and degraders carrying the merB gene have been separately reported in recent studies. However,...

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Autores principales: Zheng, Jin, Liang, Jie-Liang, Jia, Pu, Feng, Shi-wei, Lu, Jing-li, Luo, Zhen-hao, Ai, Hong-xia, Liao, Bin, Li, Jin-tian, Shu, Wen-sheng
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: American Society for Microbiology 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9948709/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36507660
http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/msystems.00736-22
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author Zheng, Jin
Liang, Jie-Liang
Jia, Pu
Feng, Shi-wei
Lu, Jing-li
Luo, Zhen-hao
Ai, Hong-xia
Liao, Bin
Li, Jin-tian
Shu, Wen-sheng
author_facet Zheng, Jin
Liang, Jie-Liang
Jia, Pu
Feng, Shi-wei
Lu, Jing-li
Luo, Zhen-hao
Ai, Hong-xia
Liao, Bin
Li, Jin-tian
Shu, Wen-sheng
author_sort Zheng, Jin
collection PubMed
description Methylmercury (MeHg) is a notorious neurotoxin, and its production and degradation in the environment are mainly driven by microorganisms. A variety of microbial MeHg producers carrying the gene pair hgcAB and degraders carrying the merB gene have been separately reported in recent studies. However, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the simultaneous investigation of the diversities of microbial MeHg producers and degraders in a given habitat, and no studies have been performed to explore to what extent these two contrasting microbial groups correlate with MeHg accumulation in the habitat of interest. Here, we collected 86 acid mine drainage (AMD) sediments from an area spanning approximately 500,000 km(2) in southern China and profiled the sediment-borne putative MeHg producers and degraders using genome-resolved metagenomics. 46 metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) containing hgcAB and 93 MAGs containing merB were obtained, including those from various taxa without previously known MeHg-metabolizing microorganisms. These diverse MeHg-metabolizing MAGs were formed largely via multiple independent horizontal gene transfer (HGT) events. The putative MeHg producers from Deltaproteobacteria and Firmicutes as well as MeHg degraders from Acidithiobacillia were closely correlated with MeHg accumulation in the sediments. Furthermore, these three taxa, in combination with two abiotic factors, explained over 60% of the variance in MeHg accumulation. Most of the members of these taxa were characterized by their metabolic potential for nitrogen fixation and copper tolerance. Overall, these findings improve our understanding of the ecology of MeHg-metabolizing microorganisms and likely have implications for the development of management strategies for the reduction of MeHg accumulation in the AMD sediments. IMPORTANCE Microorganisms are the main drivers of MeHg production and degradation in the environment. However, little attention has been paid to the simultaneous investigation of the diversities of microbial MeHg producers and degraders in a given habitat. We used genome-resolved metagenomics to reveal the vast phylogenetic and metabolic diversities of putative MeHg producers and degraders in AMD sediments. Our results show that the diversity of MeHg-metabolizing microorganisms (particularly MeHg degraders) in AMD sediments is much higher than was previously recognized. Via multiple linear regression analysis, we identified both microbial and abiotic factors affecting MeHg accumulation in AMD sediments. Despite their great diversity, only a few taxa of MeHg-metabolizing microorganisms were closely correlated with MeHg accumulation. This work underscores the importance of using genome-resolved metagenomics to survey MeHg-metabolizing microorganisms and provides a framework for the illumination of the microbial basis of MeHg accumulation via the characterization of physicochemical properties, MeHg-metabolizing microorganisms, and the correlations between them.
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spelling pubmed-99487092023-02-24 Diverse Methylmercury (MeHg) Producers and Degraders Inhabit Acid Mine Drainage Sediments, but Few Taxa Correlate with MeHg Accumulation Zheng, Jin Liang, Jie-Liang Jia, Pu Feng, Shi-wei Lu, Jing-li Luo, Zhen-hao Ai, Hong-xia Liao, Bin Li, Jin-tian Shu, Wen-sheng mSystems Research Article Methylmercury (MeHg) is a notorious neurotoxin, and its production and degradation in the environment are mainly driven by microorganisms. A variety of microbial MeHg producers carrying the gene pair hgcAB and degraders carrying the merB gene have been separately reported in recent studies. However, surprisingly little attention has been paid to the simultaneous investigation of the diversities of microbial MeHg producers and degraders in a given habitat, and no studies have been performed to explore to what extent these two contrasting microbial groups correlate with MeHg accumulation in the habitat of interest. Here, we collected 86 acid mine drainage (AMD) sediments from an area spanning approximately 500,000 km(2) in southern China and profiled the sediment-borne putative MeHg producers and degraders using genome-resolved metagenomics. 46 metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) containing hgcAB and 93 MAGs containing merB were obtained, including those from various taxa without previously known MeHg-metabolizing microorganisms. These diverse MeHg-metabolizing MAGs were formed largely via multiple independent horizontal gene transfer (HGT) events. The putative MeHg producers from Deltaproteobacteria and Firmicutes as well as MeHg degraders from Acidithiobacillia were closely correlated with MeHg accumulation in the sediments. Furthermore, these three taxa, in combination with two abiotic factors, explained over 60% of the variance in MeHg accumulation. Most of the members of these taxa were characterized by their metabolic potential for nitrogen fixation and copper tolerance. Overall, these findings improve our understanding of the ecology of MeHg-metabolizing microorganisms and likely have implications for the development of management strategies for the reduction of MeHg accumulation in the AMD sediments. IMPORTANCE Microorganisms are the main drivers of MeHg production and degradation in the environment. However, little attention has been paid to the simultaneous investigation of the diversities of microbial MeHg producers and degraders in a given habitat. We used genome-resolved metagenomics to reveal the vast phylogenetic and metabolic diversities of putative MeHg producers and degraders in AMD sediments. Our results show that the diversity of MeHg-metabolizing microorganisms (particularly MeHg degraders) in AMD sediments is much higher than was previously recognized. Via multiple linear regression analysis, we identified both microbial and abiotic factors affecting MeHg accumulation in AMD sediments. Despite their great diversity, only a few taxa of MeHg-metabolizing microorganisms were closely correlated with MeHg accumulation. This work underscores the importance of using genome-resolved metagenomics to survey MeHg-metabolizing microorganisms and provides a framework for the illumination of the microbial basis of MeHg accumulation via the characterization of physicochemical properties, MeHg-metabolizing microorganisms, and the correlations between them. American Society for Microbiology 2022-12-12 /pmc/articles/PMC9948709/ /pubmed/36507660 http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/msystems.00736-22 Text en Copyright © 2022 Zheng et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Research Article
Zheng, Jin
Liang, Jie-Liang
Jia, Pu
Feng, Shi-wei
Lu, Jing-li
Luo, Zhen-hao
Ai, Hong-xia
Liao, Bin
Li, Jin-tian
Shu, Wen-sheng
Diverse Methylmercury (MeHg) Producers and Degraders Inhabit Acid Mine Drainage Sediments, but Few Taxa Correlate with MeHg Accumulation
title Diverse Methylmercury (MeHg) Producers and Degraders Inhabit Acid Mine Drainage Sediments, but Few Taxa Correlate with MeHg Accumulation
title_full Diverse Methylmercury (MeHg) Producers and Degraders Inhabit Acid Mine Drainage Sediments, but Few Taxa Correlate with MeHg Accumulation
title_fullStr Diverse Methylmercury (MeHg) Producers and Degraders Inhabit Acid Mine Drainage Sediments, but Few Taxa Correlate with MeHg Accumulation
title_full_unstemmed Diverse Methylmercury (MeHg) Producers and Degraders Inhabit Acid Mine Drainage Sediments, but Few Taxa Correlate with MeHg Accumulation
title_short Diverse Methylmercury (MeHg) Producers and Degraders Inhabit Acid Mine Drainage Sediments, but Few Taxa Correlate with MeHg Accumulation
title_sort diverse methylmercury (mehg) producers and degraders inhabit acid mine drainage sediments, but few taxa correlate with mehg accumulation
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9948709/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36507660
http://dx.doi.org/10.1128/msystems.00736-22
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