Diverse hydrogen production and consumption pathways influence methane production in ruminants.

ABSTRACT: Farmed ruminants are the largest source of anthropogenic methane emissions globally. The methanogenic archaea responsible for these emissions use molecular hydrogen (H₂), produced during bacterial and eukaryotic carbohydrate fermentation, as their primary energy source. In this work, we used comparative genomic, metatranscriptomic and co-culture-based approaches to gain a system-wide understanding of the organisms and pathways responsible for ruminal H₂ metabolism. Two-thirds of sequenced rumen bacterial and archaeal genomes encode enzymes that catalyse H₂ production or consumption, including 26 distinct hydrogenase subgroups. Metatranscriptomic analysis confirmed that these hydrogenases are differentially expressed in sheep rumen. Electron-bifurcating [FeF

SUBMITTER: Greening C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6776011 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature