Journal
ENVIRONMENTAL MICROBIOLOGY
Volume 24, Issue 1, Pages 420-435Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1111/1462-2920.15834
Keywords
-
Categories
Funding
- National Science Foundation [OCE-1356460]
- Simons Foundation [329108, 337262, 385428, 598819]
- Postdoctoral Scholarship Programme at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
- Swiss National Science Foundation
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Extracellular vesicles are small membrane-bound structures released by cells and abundantly found in oceans. They can transport various cellular compounds and play important roles in mediating extracellular biogeochemical reactions in marine ecosystems.
Extracellular vesicles are small (similar to 50-200 nm diameter) membrane-bound structures released by cells from all domains of life. While vesicles are abundant in the oceans, their functions, both for cells themselves and the emergent ecosystem, remain a mystery. To better characterize these particles - a prerequisite for determining function - we analysed the lipid, protein, and metabolite content of vesicles produced by the marine cyanobacterium Prochlorococcus. We show that Prochlorococcus exports a diverse array of cellular compounds into the surrounding seawater enclosed within discrete vesicles. Vesicles produced by two different strains contain some materials in common, but also display numerous strain-specific differences, reflecting functional complexity within vesicle populations. The vesicles contain active enzymes, indicating that they can mediate extracellular biogeochemical reactions in the ocean. We further demonstrate that vesicles from Prochlorococcus and other bacteria associate with diverse microbes including the most abundant marine bacterium, Pelagibacter. Together, our data point toward hypotheses concerning the functional roles of vesicles in marine ecosystems including, but not limited to, possibly mediating energy and nutrient transfers, catalysing extracellular biochemical reactions, and mitigating toxicity of reactive oxygen species.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available