Phylogenetic diversity of dimethylsulfoniopropionatedependent demethylase gene dmdA in distantly related bacteria isolated from Arctic and Antarctic marine environments

• Published in: Acta oceanologica Sinica 2019-08, Vol.38 (8), p.64-71
• Main Author: Zeng, Yinxin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Antioxidants; Arctic environments; Bacteria; Bacterioplankton; Capsid protein; Carbon; Carbon sources; Chemical analysis; Climatology; Cryoprotectants; Cryoprotectors; Demethylation; Dimethylsulphoniopropionate; DMSP lyase; Earth and Environmental Science; Earth Sciences; Ecology; Engineering Fluid Dynamics; Environmental Chemistry; Gene frequency; Gene sequencing; Gene transfer; Genera; Genes; Horizontal transfer; Hypotheses; Ice environments; Marine & Freshwater Sciences; Marine environment; Microbiological strains; Nanoplankton; Nucleotide sequence; Oceanography; Phylogenetics; Phylogeny; Phytoplankton; Predators; Pseudoalteromonas; Pseudomonas; Reagents; rRNA 16S; Ruegeria; Ruegeria pomeroyi; Seawater; Strains (organisms); Sulfur; Sulphur; Water analysis
• ISSN: 0253-505X; 1869-1099
• DOI: 10.1007/s13131-019-1393-7

Dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP) is mainly produced by marine phytoplankton as an osmolyte, antioxidant, predator deterrent, or cryoprotectant. DMSP is also an important carbon and sulfur source for marine bacteria. Bacteria may metabolize DMSP via the demethylation pathway involving the DMSP demethylase gene (dmdA) or the cleavage pathway involving several different DMSP lyase genes. Most DMSP released into seawater is degraded by bacteria via demethylation. To test a hypothesis that the high gene frequency of dmdA among major marine taxa results in part from horizontal gene transfer (HGT) events, a total of thirty-one bacterial strains were isolated from Arctic Kongsfjorden seawater in this study. Analysis of 16S rRNA gene sequences showed that, except for strains BSw22118, BSw22131 and BSw22132 belonging to the genera Colwellia, Pseudomonas and Glaciecola , respectively, all bacteria fell into the genus Pseudoalteromonas . DmdA genes were detected in five distantly related bacterial strains, including four Arctic strains ( Pseudoalteromonas sp. BSw22112, Colwellia sp. BSw22118, Pseudomonas sp. BSw22131 and Glaciecola sp. BSw22132) and one Antarctic strain ( Roseicitreum antarcticum ZS2-28). Their dmdA genes showed significant similarities (97.7%–98.3%) to that of Ruegeria pomeroyi DSS-3, which was originally isolated from temperate coastal seawater. In addition, the sequence of the gene transfer agent (GTA) capsid protein gene ( g5 ) detected in Antarctic strain ZS2-28 exhibited a genetically closely related to that of Ruegeria pomeroyi DSS-3. Among the five tested strains, only Pseudomonas sp. BSw22131 could grow using DMSP as the sole carbon source. The results of this study support the hypothesis of HGT for dmdA among taxonomically heterogeneous bacterioplankton, and suggest a wide distribution of functional gene (i.e., dmdA ) in global marine environments.