P8-WANG Yinzhao

High abundance and diversity of anaerobic methane and butane metabolizing archaea in the sediments of Guaymas Basin

Yinzhao Wang1,2,3, Xiaoyuan Feng1,2, Dong Song4, Vengadesh perumal Natarajan1,2,3, Jialin Hou1,2, Haifeng Chen4,5, Xiang Xiao1,2,3* and Fengping Wang1,2,3*

1 School of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China; 2 State Key Laboratory of Microbial Metabolism, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China; 3 State Key Laboratory of Ocean Engineering, Ocean and Civil Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China; 4 Department of Bioinformatics and Biostatistics, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Shanghai 200240, China; 5 Shanghai Center for Bioinformation Technology, Shanghai 200235, China.

*Corresponding author: Xiang Xiao: xoxiang@sjtu.edu.cn; Fengping Wang: fengpingw@sjtu.edu.cn

The sediments of Guaymas Basin harbor various hydrocarbons including complex mixtures of alkanes such as methane, ethane, propane, butane formed biologically and thermogenically. Microbial anaerobic oxidation of alkanes is a key biogeochemical process in marine sediments, however not fully understood. Here we performed a comprehensive metagenomic and metatranscriptomic analysis on two sediment samples from Guaymas Basin to achieve a complete view of microbial mediated hydrocarbon metabolism. A high diversity of anaerobic methanotrophic archaea including ANME-1, ANME-2a, ANME-2d was revealed, with ANME-1 as the dominant group. And putative alkane oxidizers related with Bathyarchaea, Syntrophoarchaea (Butane oxidizing archaea reported recently) were also found coexisted. Meanwhile, these alkane metabolizing archaea were found closely associated with dissimilatory sulfate reducing bacteria as revealed by metatranscriptome and FISH analysis. The presence of high abundant and diversified alkane oxidizing archaea and associated microorganisms in Guaymas Basin sediments provide precious opportunity to systematically understand the biogeochemical cycling of hydrocarbons in marine sediments.