Revisiting Microbial Diversity in Hypersaline Microbial Mats from Guerrero Negro for a Better Understanding of Methanogenic Archaeal Communities.

Content Provider	Europe PMC
Author	García-Maldonado, José Q. Latisnere-Barragán, Hever Escobar-Zepeda, Alejandra Cadena, Santiago Ramírez-Arenas, Patricia J. Vázquez-Juárez, Ricardo Rojas-Contreras, Maurilia López-Cortés, Alejandro
Editor	DasSarma, Shiladitya Kennedy, Sean P.
Copyright Year	2023
Abstract	Knowledge regarding the diversity of methanogenic archaeal communities in hypersaline environments is limited because of the lack of efficient cultivation efforts as well as their low abundance and metabolic activities. In this study, we explored the microbial communities in hypersaline microbial mats. Bioinformatic analyses showed significant differences among the archaeal community structures for each studied site. Taxonomic assignment based on 16S rRNA and methyl coenzyme-M reductase (mcrA) gene sequences, as well as metagenomic analysis, corroborated the presence of Methanosarcinales. Furthermore, this study also provided evidence for the presence of Methanobacteriales, Methanomicrobiales, Methanomassiliicoccales, Candidatus Methanofastidiosales, Methanocellales, Methanococcales and Methanopyrales, although some of these were found in extremely low relative abundances. Several mcrA environmental sequences were significantly different from those previously reported and did not match with any known methanogenic archaea, suggesting the presence of specific environmental clusters of methanogenic archaea in Guerrero Negro. Based on functional inference and the detection of specific genes in the metagenome, we hypothesised that all four methanogenic pathways were able to occur in these environments. This study allowed the detection of extremely low-abundance methanogenic archaea, which were highly diverse and with unknown physiology, evidencing the presence of all methanogenic metabolic pathways rather than the sheer existence of exclusively methylotrophic methanogenic archaea in hypersaline environments.
Journal	Microorganisms
Volume Number	11
PubMed Central reference number	PMC10059902
Issue Number	3
PubMed reference number	36985385
e-ISSN	20762607
DOI	10.3390/microorganisms11030812
Language	English
Publisher	MDPI
Publisher Date	2023-03-22
Access Restriction	Open
Rights License	Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). © 2023 by the authors.
Subject Keyword	bacteria methanogens mcrA hypersaline microbial mats metagenomics
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Microbiology Microbiology (medical) Virology