Microorganisms Involved in Methylmercury Demethylation and Mercury Reduction are Widely Distributed and Active in the Bathypelagic Deep Ocean Waters.

ABSTRACT: The ocean's mercury (Hg) content has tripled due to anthropogenic activities, and although the dark ocean (>200 m) has become an important Hg reservoir, concentrations of the toxic and bioaccumulative methylmercury (MeHg) are low and therefore very difficult to measure. As a consequence, the current understanding of the Hg cycle in the deep ocean is severely data-limited, and the factors controlling MeHg, as well as its transformation rates, remain largely unknown. By analyzing 52 globally distributed bathypelagic deep-ocean metagenomes and 26 new metatranscriptomes from the Malaspina Expedition, our study reveals the widespread distribution and expression of bacterial-coding genes merA and merB in the global bathypelagic ocean (∼4000 m depth). These genes, associated with Hg

SUBMITTER: Sanz-Saez I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11308531 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature