Researchers identified 2,965 biosynthetic gene clusters from 870 microbial genomes recovered from Arctic hydrothermal vent biofilms, Nature Communications reported.
The team, based at the University of Bergen's Department of Biological Sciences and Centre for Deep Sea Research, paired genome-resolved metagenomics with long-read Nanopore RNA sequencing. The workflow reconstructed 1,016 bacterial and 124 archaeal medium-to-high quality metagenome-assembled genomes from previously unchartered vent communities. Ribosomally synthesized and post-translationally modified peptides predominated across all collected samples. These peptide clusters and non-ribosomal peptide synthetases, both known to produce metabolites with antimicrobial potential, ranked among the most actively expressed transcripts. Terpenes showed lower expression levels while contributing to microbial signaling and defense.
The genomic data also revealed hydrogen cyanide synthesis pathways inside archaeal genomes. Finding cyanogenesis pathways in archaea challenges the conventional understanding that hydrogen cyanide production is restricted to bacteria and eukaryotes. According to the study, extreme environmental pressures favor biosynthesis based on ribosomally synthesized peptides, and archaeal hydrogen cyanide synthesis may play a role in microbial ecological interactions. The authors noted that these hydrothermal biofilms offer a reservoir of bioactive compounds with potential applications in drug discovery.
Field teams collected the biofilm samples during expeditions to the AMORs in 2017, 2020, 2021, and 2022, assisted by the R/V G.O. SARS crew and the ROV Ægir6000 team. Researchers Thuc Trong Nguyen, Ida Helene Steen, and Runar Stokke performed bioinformatic analyses on Norway’s Sigma2 national computing infrastructure and used UCSF ChimeraX for molecular visualization. Financial support came from the University of Bergen, the Trond Mohn Foundation through grant TMS2020TMT13, and the Norwegian Research Council’s DeepSeaQuence project under grant 315427.
