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    Home > Biochemistry News > Microbiology News > Zhang Yuzhong's team at Shandong University discovered the underlying mechanism of biological energy survival in the deep sea

    Zhang Yuzhong's team at Shandong University discovered the underlying mechanism of biological energy survival in the deep sea

    • Last Update: 2021-04-14
    • Source: Internet
    • Author: User
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    iNature high hydrostatic pressure (HHP) has a great inhibitory effect on many physiological activities of microbial cells, such as membrane fluidity, RNA synthesis, motility, nutrient absorption, cell division, protein synthesis and replication.

    High hydrostatic pressure (HHP) is a typical environmental factor in the deep sea.

    However, it is not clear how pressure-tolerant bacteria adapt to HHP.

    On March 26, 2021, Zhang Yuzhong’s team from Shandong University published a research paper titled "Oxidation of trimethylamine to trimethylamine N-oxide facilitates high hydrostatic pressure tolerance in a generalist bacterial lineage" in Science Advances.
    The study identified the use of pressure-tolerant bacteria.
    Two-step metabolic pathway to cope with HHP stress.

    Myroides profundi D25T (hereinafter referred to as the D25 strain) is a member of the Bacteroides phylum and was isolated from the deep sea sediments (water depth of 1245-m) in the southern Okinawa Trough.

    Comparative genomic and transcriptomics analysis reveals the strategies used in the evolution of this species from land to ocean.

    The study found that strain D25 is a pressure-tolerant bacteria that uses trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO) to respond to HHP stress.

    The D25 strain absorbs TMA through the trimethylamine (TMA) transporter TmaT, and then uses TMA monooxygenase (MpTmm) to oxidize TMA to TMAO.

    The final accumulation of TMAO within the cell enables growth under high pressure.

    The function of the TmaT-MpTmm pathway was also confirmed by introducing it into Escherichia coli and Bacillus subtilis.

    Further analysis showed that the presence of TMA also improved the growth of other bacteria in the phylum Bacteroides containing genes encoding TmaT and MpTmm homologues under HHP, indicating that this may be a common strategy adopted by deep-sea Bacteroides.

    This study reveals the new functions of TMA/TMAO in marine bacteria and provides a direct link between unique metabolic pathways and HHP adaptability in deep-sea bacteria.

    The deep-sea (water depth of more than 1000 m) biosphere is one of the largest ecosystems on the planet and has many forms of life.

    It is estimated that there are numerous microbial cells there.

    In addition, many microorganisms pass through the ocean snow every day, and ocean currents passively migrate from surface seawater to deep seawater.

    The migration of these microorganisms is accompanied by an increase in pressure and a decrease in temperature.

    High hydrostatic pressure (HHP) has a great inhibitory effect on many physiological activities of microbial cells, such as membrane fluidity, RNA synthesis, motility, nutrient absorption, cell division, protein synthesis and replication.

    Although many microorganisms have been eliminated due to their inability to adapt to the deep sea environment, there is no doubt that some microorganisms can survive in the deep sea, and can even grow and reproduce in the HHP environment.

    According to their hydrostatic pressure tolerance, bacteria can be divided into pressure-sensitive bacteria, pressure-tolerant bacteria, pressure-philic bacteria and super-pressure-philic bacteria.

    Among them, the research on compressive bacteria has been well studied, and they are mainly distributed in α-Proteobacteria, δ-Proteobacteria and γ-Proteobacteria.

    Among the pressure-philic bacteria in the Vibrio family, the ToxR / ToxS two-component system is a pressure sensor that can control the expression of ompH / ompL genes and many other genes.

    However, for the widely distributed pressure-tolerant bacteria, it is unclear whether their adaptability to HHP drives the evolution of specific genomes to cope with HHP pressure.

    Trimethylamine (TMA) and trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO) are nitrogen-containing organic compounds widely distributed in the ocean.

    Two functions of TMAO in marine microorganisms have been described.

    First, TMAO is used as a nitrogen source for the SAR11 clade and the α-Proteobacteria of the marine Rocheella clade; secondly, TMAO is used as an electron acceptor by γ-Proteobacteria under certain anaerobic conditions.

    In addition, the function of TMAO in marine animals was also studied.

    A well-known function is related to the tolerance of deep-sea animals to HHP.

    Deep-sea animals can accumulate TMAO in their cells, which can be used to stabilize intracellular proteins and cell structures so that they can survive HHP.

    In bony fish, muscle TMAO content ranges from less than 50 mmol/kg for shallow species to more than 260 mmol/kg for deep-sea species with a depth of 4850-m.

    It is believed that fish will not survive without TMAO in the deep ocean with a depth of more than 5 kilometers.

    However, it is not clear whether deep-sea bacteria use TMAO to cope with HHP pressure.

    Myroides profundi D25T (hereinafter referred to as the D25 strain) is a member of the Bacteroides phylum and was isolated from the deep-sea sediments (water depth of 1245-m) in the southern part of the Okinawa Trough.

    Comparative genomic and transcriptomics analysis reveals the strategies used in the evolution of this species from land to ocean.

    In this study, it was found that the D25 strain is a pressure-tolerant bacteria that uses TMAO to deal with HHP stress.

    The D25 strain absorbs TMA through the TMA transporter TmaT, and then uses TMA monooxygenase (MpTmm) to oxidize TMA to TMAO.

    The final accumulation of TMAO within the cell enables growth under high pressure.

    The function of the TmaT-MpTmm pathway was also confirmed by introducing it into Escherichia coli and Bacillus subtilis.

    Further analysis showed that the presence of TMA also improved the growth of other bacteria in the phylum Bacteroides containing genes encoding TmaT and MpTmm homologues under HHP, indicating that this may be a common strategy adopted by deep-sea Bacteroides.

    This study reveals the new functions of TMA/TMAO in marine bacteria and provides a direct link between unique metabolic pathways and HHP adaptability in deep-sea bacteria.

    Reference message: https://advances.
    sciencemag.
    org/content/7/13/eabf9941
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