Production and cross-feeding of nitrite within Prochlorococcus populations
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berube-et-al-2023-production-and-cross-feeding-of-nitrite-within-prochlorococcus-populations.pdf
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Published version
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887.73 KB
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Author(s)
Berube, Paul M
O'Keefe, Tyler J
Rasmussen, Anna
LeMaster, Trent
Chisholm, Sallie W
Date Issued
July 5, 2023
Journal
mBio
Publisher
American Society for Microbiology
Citation
Berube PM, O'Keefe TJ, Rasmussen A, LeMaster T, Chisholm SW. 2023. Production and cross-feeding of nitrite within Prochlorococcus populations. mBio 14:e01236-23.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Prochlorococcus is an abundant photosynthetic bacterium in the open ocean, where nitrogen (N) often limits phytoplankton growth. In the low-light-adapted LLI clade of Prochlorococcus, nearly all cells can assimilate nitrite (NO2−), with a subset capable of assimilating nitrate (NO3−). LLI cells are maximally abundant near the primary NO2− maximum layer, an oceanographic feature that may, in part, be due to incomplete assimilatory NO3− reduction and subsequent NO2− release by phytoplankton. We hypothesized that some Prochlorococcus exhibit incomplete assimilatory NO3− reduction and examined NO2− accumulation in cultures of three Prochlorococcus strains (MIT0915, MIT0917, and SB) and two Synechococcus strains (WH8102 and WH7803). Only MIT0917 and SB accumulated external NO2− during growth on NO3−. Approximately 20–30% of the NO3− transported into the cell by MIT0917 was released as NO2−, with the rest assimilated into biomass. We further observed that co-cultures using NO3− as the sole N source could be established for MIT0917 and Prochlorococcus strain MIT1214 that can assimilate NO2− but not NO3−. In these co-cultures, the NO2− released by MIT0917 is efficiently consumed by its partner strain, MIT1214. Our findings highlight the potential for emergent metabolic partnerships that are mediated by the production and consumption of N cycle intermediates within Prochlorococcus populations.
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1128/mbio.01236-23
