Metagenomic study of red biofilms from Diamante Lake reveals ancient arsenic bioenergetics in haloarchaea.

ABSTRACT: Arsenic metabolism is proposed to be an ancient mechanism in microbial life. Different bacteria and archaea use detoxification processes to grow under high arsenic concentration. Some of them are also able to use arsenic as a bioenergetic substrate in either anaerobic arsenate respiration or chemolithotrophic growth on arsenite. However, among the archaea, bioenergetic arsenic metabolism has only been found in the Crenarchaeota phylum. Here we report the discovery of haloarchaea (Euryarchaeota phylum) biofilms forming under the extreme environmental conditions such as high salinity, pH and arsenic concentration at 4589 m above sea level inside a volcano crater in Diamante Lake, Argentina. Metagenomic analyses revealed a surprisingly high abundance of genes used for arsenite oxidation (aioB

SUBMITTER: Rascovan N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4737923 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature