New hydrocarbon degradation pathways in the microbial metagenome from Brazilian petroleum reservoirs.

ABSTRACT: Current knowledge of the microbial diversity and metabolic pathways involved in hydrocarbon degradation in petroleum reservoirs is still limited, mostly due to the difficulty in recovering the complex community from such an extreme environment. Metagenomics is a valuable tool to investigate the genetic and functional diversity of previously uncultured microorganisms in natural environments. Using a function-driven metagenomic approach, we investigated the metabolic abilities of microbial communities in oil reservoirs. Here, we describe novel functional metabolic pathways involved in the biodegradation of aromatic compounds in a metagenomic library obtained from an oil reservoir. Although many of the deduced proteins shared homology with known enzymes of different well-described aerobic and

SUBMITTER: Sierra-Garcia IN 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3935994 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature