| 1. |
- Abreu, Clare I., et al.
(författare)
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Warmer temperatures favor slower-growing bacteria in natural marine communities
- 2023
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Ingår i: Science Advances. - : American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). - 2375-2548. ; 9:19
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Earth's life-sustaining oceans harbor diverse bacterial communities that display varying composition across time and space. While particular patterns of variation have been linked to a range of factors, unifying rules are lacking, preventing the prediction of future changes. Here, analyzing the distribution of fast- and slowgrowing bacteria in ocean datasets spanning seasons, latitude, and depth, we show that higher seawater temperatures universally favor slower-growing taxa, in agreement with theoretical predictions of how temperaturedependent growth rates differentially modulate the impact of mortality on species abundances. Changes in bacterial community structure promoted by temperature are independent of variations in nutrients along spatial and temporal gradients. Our results help explain why slow growers dominate at the ocean surface, during summer, and near the tropics and provide a framework to understand how bacterial communities will change in a warmer world.
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| 2. |
- Aguilera, Anabella, et al.
(författare)
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Ecophysiological analysis reveals distinct environmental preferences in closely related Baltic Sea picocyanobacteria
- 2023
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Ingår i: Environmental Microbiology. - Chichester : John Wiley & Sons. - 1462-2912 .- 1462-2920. ; 25:9, s. 1674-1695
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Cluster 5 picocyanobacteria significantly contribute to primary productivity in aquatic ecosystems. Estuarine populations are highly diverse and consist of many co-occurring strains, but their physiology remains largely understudied. In this study, we characterized 17 novel estuarine picocyanobacterial strains. Phylogenetic analysis of the 16S rRNA and pigment genes (cpcBandcpeBA) uncovered multiple estuarine and freshwater-related clusters and pigment types. Assays with five representative strains (three phycocyanin rich and two phycoerythrin rich) under temperature (10–30°C), light(10–190 μmol photons m-2s-1), and salinity (2–14 PSU) gradients revealed distinct growth optima and tolerance, indicating that genetic variability was accompanied by physiological diversity. Adaptability to environmental conditions was associated with differential pigment content and photosynthetic performance. Amplicon sequence variants at a coastal and an offshore station linked population dynamics with phylogenetic clusters, supporting that strains isolated in this study represent key ecotypes within the Baltic Sea picocyanobacterial community. The functional diversity found within strains with the same pigment type suggests that understanding estuarine picocyanobacterial ecology requires analysis beyond the phycocyanin and phycoerythrin divide. This new knowledge of the environmental preferences in estuarine picocyanobacteria is important for understanding and evaluating productivity in current and future ecosystems.
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| 3. |
- Akram, Neelam
(författare)
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From genes to ecological function in marine bacteria
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Bacteria in the sea are constantly exposed to environmental challenges (e.g. variations in nutrient concentrations, temperature and light conditions), and therefore appropriate gene expression response strategies to cope with them efficiently are evolved. This thesis investigates some interconnected questions regarding such adaptive strategies employed by marine bacteria.The recently discovered ability of bacteria to use the membrane protein proteorhodopsin (PR) to harvest light energy for cell metabolism were investigated in Vibrio sp. AND4 and Dokdonia sp. MED134. PR phototrophy in AND4 promoted survival during starvation, the molecular basis for which were the upregulation of the PR gene by nutrient limitation rather than light. MED134, in contrast, uses PR phototrophy to grow better, and we discovered that the light-stimulated growth was stronger in seawater with the single carbon compound alanine compared to a mixture of complex organic matter. Thus, differences between bacteria in PR gene expression regulation in response to light, nutrients or organic matter quality critically determine the ecological role of PR phototrophy in the sea.Current observations that membrane transporters (including PR) are highly expressed in seawater inspired a comparative analysis of transporter distributions in marine bacteria. Totally, 192 transporter families were found in 290 genome-sequenced strains. Consistent differences, but also similarities, in the number of transporters were found between major bacterial groups. Interestingly, sodium transporters were found to be more abundant in PR-containing SAR11. These findings suggest that bacteria have inherently distinctive potentials to adapt to resource variations in the sea.To examine links between transcriptional responses and growth of bacteria under controlled environmental settings, a mesocosm phytoplankton bloom experiment was performed. Transcriptional analysis of the microbial community (i.e. metatranscriptomics) revealed 2800 categories of functional genes (SEED functions), of which around 10% were overrepresented in either the bloom mesocosms or the controls. Importantly, these functions indicated potential metabolic mechanisms (e.g. TonB mediated nutrient transport) by which bacteria took advantage of the bloom conditions.This thesis combines analyses of model organisms with community analysis and highlights the possibilities to identify important mechanisms that underlie the ecological success of different bacteria in the marine environment.
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| 4. |
- Akram, Neelam, et al.
(författare)
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Regulation of proteorhodopsin gene expression by nutrient limitation in the marine bacterium Vibrio sp AND4
- 2013
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Ingår i: Environmental Microbiology. - : Wiley. - 1462-2912 .- 1462-2920. ; 15:5, s. 1400-1415
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Proteorhodopsin (PR), a ubiquitous membrane photoprotein in marine environments, acts as a light-driven proton pump and can provide energy for bacterial cellular metabolism. However, knowledge of factors that regulate PR gene expression in different bacteria remains strongly limited. Here, experiments with Vibrio sp. AND4 showed that PR phototrophy promoted survival only in cells from stationary phase and not in actively growing cells. PR gene expression was tightly regulated, with very low values in exponential phase, a pronounced peak at the exponential/stationary phase intersection, and a marked decline in stationary phase. Thus, PR gene expression at the entry into stationary phase preceded, and could therefore largely explain, the stationary phase light-induced survival response in AND4. Further experiments revealed nutrient limitation, not light exposure, regulated this differential PR expression. Screening of available marine vibrios showed that the PR gene, and thus the potential for PR phototrophy, is found in at least three different clusters in the genus Vibrio. In an ecological context, our findings suggest that some PR-containing bacteria adapted to the exploitation of nutrient-rich micro-environments rely on a phase of relatively slowly declining resources to mount a cellular response preparing them for adverse conditions dispersed in the water column.
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| 5. |
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| 6. |
- Alneberg, Johannes, et al.
(författare)
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BARM and BalticMicrobeDB, a reference metagenome and interface to meta-omic data for the Baltic Sea
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The Baltic Sea is one of the world’s largest brackish water bodies and is characterised by pronounced physicochemical gradients where microbes are the main biogeochemical catalysts. Meta-omic methods provide rich information on the composition of, and activities within microbial ecosystems, but are computationally heavy to perform. We here present the BAltic Sea Reference Metagenome (BARM), complete with annotated genes to facilitate further studies with much less computational effort. The assembly is constructed using 2.6 billion metagenomic reads from 81 water samples, spanning both spatial and temporal dimensions, and contains 6.8 million genes that have been annotated for function and taxonomy. The assembly is useful as a reference, facilitating taxonomic and functional annotation of additional samples by simply mapping their reads against the assembly. This capability is demonstrated by the successful mapping and annotation of 24 external samples. In addition, we present a public web interface, BalticMicrobeDB, for interactive exploratory analysis of the dataset.
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| 7. |
- Alneberg, Johannes, et al.
(författare)
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BARM and BalticMicrobeDB, a reference metagenome and interface to meta-omic data for the Baltic Sea
- 2018
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Ingår i: Scientific Data. - : Nature Publishing Group. - 2052-4463. ; 5
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Baltic Sea is one of the world's largest brackish water bodies and is characterised by pronounced physicochemical gradients where microbes are the main biogeochemical catalysts. Meta-omic methods provide rich information on the composition of, and activities within, microbial ecosystems, but are computationally heavy to perform. We here present the Baltic Sea Reference Metagenome (BARM), complete with annotated genes to facilitate further studies with much less computational effort. The assembly is constructed using 2.6 billion metagenomic reads from 81 water samples, spanning both spatial and temporal dimensions, and contains 6.8 million genes that have been annotated for function and taxonomy. The assembly is useful as a reference, facilitating taxonomic and functional annotation of additional samples by simply mapping their reads against the assembly. This capability is demonstrated by the successful mapping and annotation of 24 external samples. In addition, we present a public web interface, BalticMicrobeDB, for interactive exploratory analysis of the dataset. [GRAPHICS] .
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| 8. |
- Alneberg, Johannes, et al.
(författare)
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Ecosystem-wide metagenomic binning enables prediction of ecological niches from genomes
- 2020
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Ingår i: Communications Biology. - : Nature Publishing Group. - 2399-3642. ; 3:1, s. 1-10
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Alneberg et al. conduct metagenomics binning of water samples collected over major environmental gradients in the Baltic Sea. They use machine-learning to predict the placement of genome clusters along niche gradients based on the content of functional genes. The genome encodes the metabolic and functional capabilities of an organism and should be a major determinant of its ecological niche. Yet, it is unknown if the niche can be predicted directly from the genome. Here, we conduct metagenomic binning on 123 water samples spanning major environmental gradients of the Baltic Sea. The resulting 1961 metagenome-assembled genomes represent 352 species-level clusters that correspond to 1/3 of the metagenome sequences of the prokaryotic size-fraction. By using machine-learning, the placement of a genome cluster along various niche gradients (salinity level, depth, size-fraction) could be predicted based solely on its functional genes. The same approach predicted the genomes' placement in a virtual niche-space that captures the highest variation in distribution patterns. The predictions generally outperformed those inferred from phylogenetic information. Our study demonstrates a strong link between genome and ecological niche and provides a conceptual framework for predictive ecology based on genomic data.
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| 9. |
- Alneberg, Johannes, et al.
(författare)
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Genomes from uncultivated prokaryotes : a comparison of metagenome-assembled and single-amplified genomes
- 2018
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Ingår i: Microbiome. - : BioMed Central. - 2049-2618. ; 6
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background: Prokaryotes dominate the biosphere and regulate biogeochemical processes essential to all life. Yet, our knowledge about their biology is for the most part limited to the minority that has been successfully cultured. Molecular techniques now allow for obtaining genome sequences of uncultivated prokaryotic taxa, facilitating in-depth analyses that may ultimately improve our understanding of these key organisms. Results: We compared results from two culture-independent strategies for recovering bacterial genomes: single-amplified genomes and metagenome-assembled genomes. Single-amplified genomes were obtained from samples collected at an offshore station in the Baltic Sea Proper and compared to previously obtained metagenome-assembled genomes from a time series at the same station. Among 16 single-amplified genomes analyzed, seven were found to match metagenome-assembled genomes, affiliated with a diverse set of taxa. Notably, genome pairs between the two approaches were nearly identical (average 99.51% sequence identity; range 98.77-99.84%) across overlapping regions (30-80% of each genome). Within matching pairs, the single-amplified genomes were consistently smaller and less complete, whereas the genetic functional profiles were maintained. For the metagenome-assembled genomes, only on average 3.6% of the bases were estimated to be missing from the genomes due to wrongly binned contigs. Conclusions: The strong agreement between the single-amplified and metagenome-assembled genomes emphasizes that both methods generate accurate genome information from uncultivated bacteria. Importantly, this implies that the research questions and the available resources are allowed to determine the selection of genomics approach for microbiome studies.
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| 10. |
- Alneberg, Johannes, et al.
(författare)
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Genomes from uncultivated prokaryotes: a comparison of metagenome-assembled and single-amplified genomes
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Annan publikation (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Background: Prokaryotes dominate the biosphere and regulate biogeochemical processes essential to all life. Yet, our knowledge about their biology is for the most part limited to the minority that has been successfully cultured. Molecular techniques now allow for obtaining genome sequences of uncultivated prokaryotic taxa, facilitating in-depth analyses that may ultimately improve our understanding of these key organisms.Results: We compared results from two culture-independent strategies for recovering bacterial genomes: single-amplified genomes and metagenome-assembled genomes. Single-amplified genomes were obtained from samples collected at an offshore station in the Baltic Sea Proper and compared to previously obtained metagenome-assembled genomes from a time series at the same station. Among 16 single-amplified genomes analyzed, seven were found to match metagenome-assembled genomes, affiliated with a diverse set of taxa. Notably, genome pairs between the two approaches were nearly identical (>98.7% identity) across overlapping regions (30-80% of each genome). Within matching pairs, the single-amplified genomes were consistently smaller and less complete, whereas the genetic functional profiles were maintained. For the metagenome-assembled genomes, only on average 3.6% of the bases were estimated to be missing from the genomes due to wrongly binned contigs; the metagenome assembly was found to cause incompleteness to a higher degree than the binning procedure.Conclusions: The strong agreement between the single-amplified and metagenome-assembled genomes emphasizes that both methods generate accurate genome information from uncultivated bacteria. Importantly, this implies that the research questions and the available resources are allowed to determine the selection of genomics approach for microbiome studies.
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