Unique Patterns and Biogeochemical Relevance of Two-Component Sensing in Marine Bacteria
Name
mSystems-2019-Held-e00317-18.full.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
2.62 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
7b5d6e3e4c0bb04aaa45c511aa00ab43
Author(s)
Held, Noelle A.
McIlvin, Matthew R.
Moran, Dawn M.
Laub, Michael T
Saito, Mak A.
Date Issued
February 2019
Journal
mSystems
Publisher
American Society for Microbiology
Citation
Held, Noelle A. et al. "Unique Patterns and Biogeochemical Relevance of Two-Component Sensing in Marine Bacteria." mSystems 4, 1 (February 2019): e00317-18 © 2019 The Author(s)
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Two-component sensory (TCS) systems link microbial physiology to the environment and thus may play key roles in biogeochemical cycles. In this study, we surveyed the TCS systems of 328 diverse marine bacterial species. We identified lifestyle traits such as copiotrophy and diazotrophy that are associated with larger numbers of TCS system genes within the genome. We compared marine bacterial species with 1,152 reference bacterial species from a variety of habitats and found evidence of extra response regulators in marine genomes. Examining the location of TCS genes along the circular bacterial genome, we also found that marine bacteria have a large number of “orphan” genes, as well as many hybrid histidine kinases. The prevalence of “extra” response regulators, orphan genes, and hybrid TCS systems suggests that marine bacteria break with traditional understanding of how TCS systems operate. These trends suggest prevalent regulatory networking, which may allow coordinated physiological responses to multiple environmental signals and may represent a specific adaptation to the marine environment. We examine phylogenetic and lifestyle traits that influence the number and structure of two-component systems in the genome, finding, for example, that a lack of two-component systems is a hallmark of oligotrophy. Finally, in an effort to demonstrate the importance of TCS systems to marine biogeochemistry, we examined the distribution of Prochlorococcus/Synechococcus response regulator PMT9312_0717 in metaproteomes of the tropical South Pacific. We found that this protein’s abundance is related to phosphate concentrations, consistent with a putative role in phosphate regulation. IMPORTANCE Marine microbes must manage variation in their chemical, physical, and biological surroundings. Because they directly link bacterial physiology to environmental changes, TCS systems are crucial to the bacterial cell. This study surveyed TCS systems in a large number of marine bacteria and identified key phylogenetic and lifestyle patterns in environmental sensing. We found evidence that, in comparison with bacteria as a whole, marine organisms have irregular TCS system constructs which might represent an adaptation specific to the marine environment. Additionally, we demonstrate the biogeochemical relevance of TCS systems by correlating the presence of the PMT9312_0717 response regulator protein to phosphate concentrations in the South Pacific. We highlight that despite their potential ecological and biogeochemical relevance, TCS systems have been understudied in the marine ecosystem. This report expands our understanding of the breadth of bacterial TCS systems and how marine bacteria have adapted to survive in their unique environment.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Biology
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1128/msystems.00317-18
