4.8 Article

Comparison of prokaryotes between Mount Everest and the Mariana Trench

Journal

MICROBIOME
Volume 10, Issue 1, Pages -

Publisher

BMC
DOI: 10.1186/s40168-022-01403-y

Keywords

Prokaryotic community; Mount Everest; Mariana Trench; Biodiversity; Metabolic capability; Shotgun metagenomics

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Funding

  1. Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research Program (STEP)
  2. Center for High Performance Computing at Shanghai Jiao Tong University
  3. [2021QZKK0100]

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The comparison of prokaryotic communities between Mount Everest and the Mariana Trench reveals distinct differences in taxonomic composition but striking commonality in metabolic capabilities, suggesting similar adaptation strategies of prokaryotes in elemental cycling and overcoming different environmental stresses.
BackgroundMount Everest and the Mariana Trench represent the highest and deepest places on Earth, respectively. They are geographically separated, with distinct extreme environmental parameters that provide unique habitats for prokaryotes. Comparison of prokaryotes between Mount Everest and the Mariana Trench will provide a unique perspective to understanding the composition and distribution of environmental microbiomes on Earth. ResultsHere, we compared prokaryotic communities between Mount Everest and the Mariana Trench based on shotgun metagenomic analysis. Analyzing 25 metagenomes and 1176 metagenome-assembled genomes showed distinct taxonomic compositions between Mount Everest and the Mariana Trench, with little taxa overlap, and significant differences in genome size, GC content, and predicted optimal growth temperature. However, community metabolic capabilities exhibited striking commonality, with > 90% of metabolic modules overlapping among samples of Mount Everest and the Mariana Trench, with the only exception for CO2 fixations (photoautotrophy in Mount Everest but chemoautotrophy in the Mariana Trench). Most metabolic pathways were common but performed by distinct taxa in the two extreme habitats, even including some specialized metabolic pathways, such as the versatile degradation of various refractory organic matters, heavy metal metabolism (e.g., As and Se), stress resistance, and antioxidation. The metabolic commonality indicated the overall consistent roles of prokaryotes in elemental cycling and common adaptation strategies to overcome the distinct stress conditions despite the intuitively huge differences in Mount Everest and the Mariana Trench. ConclusionOur results, the first comparison between prokaryotes in the highest and the deepest habitats on Earth, may highlight the principles of prokaryotic diversity: although taxa are habitat-specific, primary metabolic functions could be always conserved.

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