Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Enterococci are gut microbes of most land animals. Likely appearing first in the guts of arthropods as they moved onto land, they diversified over hundreds of millions of years adapting to evolving hosts and host diets. Over 60 enterococcal species are now known. Two species, Enterococcus faecalis and Enterococcus faecium, are common constituents of the human microbiome. They are also now leading causes of multidrug-resistant hospital-associated infection. The basis for host association of enterococcal species is unknown. To begin identifying traits that drive host association, we collected 886 enterococcal strains from widely diverse hosts, ecologies, and geographies. This identified 18 previously undescribed species expanding genus diversity by >25%. These species harbor diverse genes including toxins and systems for detoxification and resource acquisition. Enterococcus faecalis and E. faecium were isolated from diverse hosts highlighting their generalist properties. Most other species showed a more restricted distribution indicative of specialized host association. The expanded species diversity permitted the Enterococcus genus phylogeny to be viewed with unprecedented resolution, allowing features to be identified that distinguish its four deeply rooted clades, and the entry of genes associated with range expansion such as B-vitamin biosynthesis and flagellar motility to be mapped to the phylogeny. This work provides an unprecedentedly broad and deep view of the genus Enterococcus , including insights into its evolution, potential new threats to human health, and where substantial additional enterococcal diversity is likely to be found.

Significance Heme is essential for respiration. As a cofactor of cytochromes, heme functions as a main electron carrier in all respiratory electron transport chains. Therefore, it is natural to expect all respiring and free-living microorganisms to make heme. Against this expectation, here we show that the acI lineage, one of the most abundant bacterial groups in freshwater environments, is unable to biosynthesize heme and requires exogenous heme. Furthermore, we provide genomic evidence for putative heme auxotrophy among many not-yet-cultured aquatic microbial groups. Heme should be the focus of future research on the metabolic dependency among microorganisms and the role of exchangeable metabolites in structuring diverse ecosystems, and would also be a media component that must be considered when cultivating novel microbes.

Significance Diverse microbial life has been detected in the cold desert soils of Antarctica once thought to be barren. Here, we provide metagenomic, biogeochemical, and culture-based evidence that Antarctic soil microorganisms are phylogenetically and functionally distinct from those in other soils and adopt various metabolic and ecological strategies. The most abundant community members are metabolically versatile aerobes that use ubiquitous atmospheric trace gases to potentially meet energy, carbon, and, through metabolic water production, hydration needs. Lineages capable of harvesting solar energy, oxidizing edaphic inorganic substrates, or adopting symbiotic lifestyles were also identified. Altogether, these findings provide insights into microbial adaptation to extreme water and energy limitation and will inform ongoing efforts to conserve the unique biodiversity on this continent.

Significance Symbiotic dinitrogen (N 2 )-fixing trees fulfill a critical function in tropical forests by bringing in new nitrogen, yet it remains unclear how they overcome constraints by highly weathered, nutrient-poor tropical soils. We advance forest biogeochemistry and microbial ecology with the discovery from field trials in Panama that fast-growing N 2 -fixing trees in tropical forests exhibit accelerated mineral weathering and distinctive soil metagenomes that improve their access to inorganic nutrients in nutrient-poor soils. Furthermore, we show that N 2 -fixing trees exert similar effects on non-N 2 –fixing trees nearby thus having previously overlooked community-wide effects on tropical forest nutrient cycling. These results offer insights into the role of N 2 -fixing trees and their associated microbiomes in safeguarding the function of tropical forests within the global biosphere.

Significance We report on cultivation and characterization of an association between Candidatus Nanohalobium constans and its host, the chitinotrophic haloarchaeon Halomicrobium LC1Hm, obtained from a crystallizer pond of marine solar salterns. High-quality nanohaloarchael genome sequence in conjunction with electron- and fluorescence microscopy, growth analysis, and proteomic and metabolomic data revealed mutually beneficial interactions between two archaea, and allowed dissection of the mechanisms for these interactions. Owing to their ubiquity in hypersaline environments, Nanohaloarchaeota may play a role in carbon turnover and ecosystem functioning, yet insights into the nature of this have been lacking. Here, we provide evidence that nanohaloarchaea can expand the range of available substrates for the haloarchaeon, suggesting that the ectosymbiont increases the metabolic capacity of the host.

Cable bacteria of the family Desulfobulbaceae form centimeter-long filaments comprising thousands of cells. They occur worldwide in the surface of aquatic sediments, where they connect sulfide oxidation with oxygen or nitrate reduction via long-distance electron transport. In the absence of pure cultures, we used single-filament genomics and metagenomics to retrieve draft genomes of 3 marine Candidatus Electrothrix and 1 freshwater Ca. Electronema species. These genomes contain >50% unknown genes but still share their core genomic makeup with sulfate-reducing and sulfur-disproportionating Desulfobulbaceae, with few core genes lost and 212 unique genes (from 197 gene families) conserved among cable bacteria. Last common ancestor analysis indicates gene divergence and lateral gene transfer as equally important origins of these unique genes. With support from metaproteomics of a Ca. Electronema enrichment, the genomes suggest that cable bacteria oxidize sulfide by reversing the canonical sulfate reduction pathway and fix CO 2 using the Wood–Ljungdahl pathway. Cable bacteria show limited organotrophic potential, may assimilate smaller organic acids and alcohols, fix N 2 , and synthesize polyphosphates and polyglucose as storage compounds; several of these traits were confirmed by cell-level experimental analyses. We propose a model for electron flow from sulfide to oxygen that involves periplasmic cytochromes, yet-unidentified conductive periplasmic fibers, and periplasmic oxygen reduction. This model proposes that an active cable bacterium gains energy in the anodic, sulfide-oxidizing cells, whereas cells in the oxic zone flare off electrons through intense cathodic oxygen respiration without energy conservation; this peculiar form of multicellularity seems unparalleled in the microbial world.

Citrus greening disease, also known as huanglongbing (HLB), is the most devastating disease of Citrus worldwide. This incurable disease is caused primarily by the bacterium Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus and spread by feeding of the Asian Citrus Psyllid, Diaphorina citri. Ca. L. asiaticus cannot be cultured; its growth is restricted to citrus phloem and the psyllid insect. Management of infected trees includes use of broad-spectrum antibiotics, which have disadvantages. Recent work has sought to identify small molecules that inhibit Ca. L. asiaticus transcription regulators, based on a premise that at least some regulators control expression of genes necessary for virulence. We describe a synthetic, high-throughput screening system to identify compounds that inhibit activity of Ca. L. asiaticus transcription activators LdtR, RpoH, and VisNR. Our system uses the closely related model bacterium, Sinorhizobium meliloti, as a heterologous host for expression of a Ca. L. asiaticus transcription activator, the activity of which is detected through expression of an enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) gene fused to a target promoter. We used this system to screen more than 120,000 compounds for compounds that inhibited regulator activity, but not growth. Our screen identified several dozen compounds that inhibit regulator activity in our assay. This work shows that, in addition to providing a means of characterizing Ca. L. asiaticus regulators, an S. meliloti host can be used for preliminary identification of candidate inhibitory molecules.

Methanogenic archaea are major contributors to the global carbon cycle and were long thought to belong exclusively to the euryarchaeal phylum. Discovery of the methanogenesis gene cluster methyl-coenzyme M reductase (Mcr) in the Bathyarchaeota, and thereafter the Verstraetearchaeota, led to a paradigm shift, pushing back the evolutionary origin of methanogenesis to predate that of the Euryarchaeota. The methylotrophic methanogenesis found in the non-Euryarchaota distinguished itself from the predominantly hydrogenotrophic methanogens found in euryarchaeal orders as the former do not couple methanogenesis to carbon fixation through the reductive acetyl-CoA [Wood–Ljungdahl pathway (WLP)], which was interpreted as evidence for independent evolution of the two methanogenesis pathways. Here, we report the discovery of a complete and divergent hydrogenotrophic methanogenesis pathway in a thermophilic order of the Verstraetearchaeota, which we have named Candidatus Methanohydrogenales, as well as the presence of the WLP in the crenarchaeal order Desulfurococcales. Our findings support the ancient origin of hydrogenotrophic methanogenesis, suggest that methylotrophic methanogenesis might be a later adaptation of specific orders, and provide insight into how the transition from hydrogenotrophic to methylotrophic methanogenesis might have occurred.

Significance Gastrointestinal symbionts of organisms are important in the breakdown of food for the host, particularly for herbivores requiring exogenous enzymes to digest complex polysaccharides in their diet. However, their role in the digestion of algae in marine piscine herbivores remains unresolved. Here, we show that the diversity of food sources available to herbivorous surgeonfishes is directly linked with the genetic makeup of their enteric microbiota. Importantly, the genomic blueprint of dominant enteric symbionts belonging to diverse Epulopiscium clades differs according to the host diet. Thus, the acquisition of a unique enteric microbiota specialized to their diets likely shapes the nutritional ecology of piscine herbivores, in turn facilitating the coexistence of a high diversity of marine species within coral reefs.

Significance A wide range of organisms sense Earth’s magnetic field for navigation. For some organisms, like magnetotactic bacteria, magnetic particles form inside cells and act like a compass. However, the origin of magnetotactic behavior remains a mystery. We report that magnetotaxis evolved in bacteria during the Archean, before or near the divergence between the Nitrospirae and Proteobacteria phyla, suggesting that magnetotactic bacteria are one of the earliest magnetic-sensing and biomineralizing organisms on Earth. The early origin for magnetotaxis would have provided evolutionary advantages in coping with environmental challenges faced by microorganisms on early Earth. The persistence of magnetotaxis in separate lineages implies the temporal continuity of geomagnetic field, and this biological evidence provides a constraint on the evolution of the geodynamo.