Microbial iron oxide respiration coupled to sulfide oxidation

作者：Song‐Can Chen, Xiaomin Li, Nicola Battisti, Guoqing Guan, María Montoya, Jay Osvatic, Petra Pjevac, Shaul Pollak, Andreas Richter, Arno Schintlmeister, Wolfgang Wanek, Marc Mussmann, Alexander Loy · 发表于：Nature · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1038/s41586-025-09467-0 · 被引用次数：43 · 研究领域：Microbial Fuel Cells and Bioremediation、Metal Extraction and Bioleaching、Microbial Community Ecology and Physiology

Abstract Microorganisms have driven Earth’s sulfur cycle since the emergence of life 1–6 , yet the sulfur-cycling capacities of microorganisms and their integration with other element cycles remain incompletely understood. One such uncharacterized metabolism is the coupling of sulfide oxidation with iron( iii ) oxide reduction, a ubiquitous environmental process hitherto considered to be strictly abiotic 7,8 . Here we present a comprehensive genomic analysis of sulfur metabolism across prokaryotes, and reveal bacteria that are capable of oxidizing sulfide using extracellular solid phase iron( iii ). Based on a phylogenetic framework of over hundred genes involved in dissimilatory transformation of sulfur compounds, we recorded sulfur-cycling capacity in most bacterial and archaeal phyla. Metabolic reconstructions predicted co-occurrence of sulfur compound oxidation and iron( iii ) oxide respiration in diverse members of 37 prokaryotic phyla. Physiological and transcriptomic evidence demonstrated that a cultivated representative, Desulfurivibrio alkaliphilus , grows autotrophically by oxidizing dissolved sulfide or iron monosulfide (FeS) to sulfate with ferrihydrite as an extracellular iron( iii ) electron acceptor. The biological process outpaced the abiotic process at environmentally relevant sulfide concentrations. These findings expand the known diversity of sulfur-cycling microorganisms and unveil a biological mechanism that links sulfur and iron cycling in anoxic environ...