Publication Date:
2022-05-25
Description:
© The Author(s), 2018. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Microbiome 6 (2018): 123, doi:10.1186/s40168-018-0505-5.
Description:
Glaciers cover ~ 10% of land but are among the least explored environments on Earth. The basal portion of glaciers often harbors unique aquatic microbial ecosystems in the absence of sunlight, and knowledge on the microbial community structures and their metabolic potential is very limited. Here, we provide insights into the microbial lifestyle present at the base of the Matanuska Glacier, Alaska. DNA and RNA were extracted from samples of the Matanuska Glacier basal ice. Using Illumina MiSeq and HiSeq sequencing, we investigated the microbial diversity with the metagenomic shotgun reads and 16S ribosomal RNA data. We further assembled 9 partial and draft bacterial genomes from the metagenomic assembly, and identified key metabolic pathways such as sulfur oxidation and nitrification. Collectively, our analyses suggest a prevalence of lithotrophic and heterotrophic metabolisms in the subglacial microbiome. Our results present the first metagenomic assembly and bacterial draft genomes for a subglacial environment. These results extend our understanding of the chemical and biological processes in subglacial environments critically influenced by global climate change.
Description:
This work was supported in part by funding from the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (2016YFC0206300 and 2015CB553402), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (21750005, 31470532, 91543102, and 31711530153), the Beijing Nova Program (Z171100001117011), the Tsinghua University Initiative Scientific Research Program (20161080152), the NASA ASTEP Program (NNX11AJ89G), the Tsinghua University-Peking University Center for Life Sciences (CLS), and the Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Structural Biology.
Keywords:
Microbiome
;
Metagenomics
;
Glacier
;
Basal ice layer
Repository Name:
Woods Hole Open Access Server
Type:
Article
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