Microbial metabolism in laboratory reared marine snow as revealed by a multi-omics approach

作者：Lei Hou, Zihao Zhao, Barbara Steger-Mähnert, Nianzhi Jiao, Gerhard J. Herndl, Yao Zhang · 发表于：Microbiome · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1186/s40168-025-02097-8 · 被引用次数：10 · 研究领域：Polar Research and Ecology、Microbial Community Ecology and Physiology、Cryospheric studies and observations

BACKGROUND: Marine snow represents an organic matter-rich habitat and provides substrates for diverse microbial populations in the marine ecosystem. However, the functional diversity and metabolic interactions within the microbial community inhabiting marine snow remain largely underexplored, particularly for specific metabolic pathways involved in marine snow degradation. Here, we used a multi-omics approach to explore the microbial response to laboratory-reared phytoplankton-derived marine snow. RESULTS: Our results demonstrated a dramatic shift in both taxonomic and functional profiles of the microbial community after the formation of phytoplankton-derived marine snow using a rolling tank system. The changes in microbial metabolic processes were more pronounced in the metaproteome than in the metagenome in response to marine snow. Fast-growing taxa within the Gammaproteobacteria were the most dominant group at both the metagenomic and metaproteomic level. These Gammaproteobacteria possessed a variety of carbohydrate-active enzymes (CAZymes) and transporters facilitating substrate cleavage and uptake, respectively. Analysis of metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) revealed that the response to marine snow amendment was primarily mediated by Alteromonas, Vibrio, and Thalassotalea. Among these, Alteromonas exclusively expressing auxiliary activities 2 (AA2) of the CAZyme subfamily were abundant in both the free-living (FL) and marine snow-attached (MA) microbial communities. Th...