Atribacteria Reproducing over Millions of Years in the Atlantic Abyssal Subseafloor.

ABSTRACT: How microbial metabolism is translated into cellular reproduction under energy-limited settings below the seafloor over long timescales is poorly understood. Here, we show that microbial abundance increases an order of magnitude over a 5 million-year-long sequence in anoxic subseafloor clay of the abyssal North Atlantic Ocean. This increase in biomass correlated with an increased number of transcribed protein-encoding genes that included those involved in cytokinesis, demonstrating that active microbial reproduction outpaces cell death in these ancient sediments. Metagenomes, metatranscriptomes, and 16S rRNA gene sequencing all show that the actively reproducing community was dominated by the candidate phylum "Candidatus Atribacteria," which exhibited patterns of gene expression con

SUBMITTER: Vuillemin A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7542362 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature