Awakening ancient polar Actinobacteria: diversity, evolution and specialized metabolite potential

Abstract

The GenBank accession numbers for the the 16S rRNA gene sequences: MH725277 -MH725319. Three supplementary tables and two supplementary figure are available with the online version of this article.

Advances in actinomycete research: an ActinoBase review of 2019

“…Actinomycetes are an ecologically diverse group, able to occupy a huge range of environments and niches. This is exemplified by the breadth of habitats actinomycetes were detected in and isolated from in 2019, ranging from marine sediments in the Arctic and Antarctic [47] to tropical mangrove sediments in India [48]. They have been found in wetlands [49], hyper-arid Atacaman desert soils [50], underground in Shuanghe cave systems [51] and in Himalayan mountain pine forests [52].…”

“…They can also be associated with plants, ranging from the economically important cereal crop wheat ( Triticum aestivum , 53) to the Japanese black pine tree [55]. The varied ecology of actinomycetes provides a deep well of biological intrigue and has led to important discoveries such as new antibiotics [47, 54] and agricultural biocontrol applications [56, 57].…”

“…These ecosystems are highly vulnerable to global climate change and so exploration of the polar sediment microbiome may provide insights into the biomass, diversity and community composition of microbial communities in fluctuating environments. Furthermore, it has been proposed that geographical isolation may determine bacterial population structure, and investigation into the relationship between community composition, functional genes and sediment depth may elucidate more about actinomycete evolution and ecology [47].…”

“…Following DNA extraction, MinION sequencing was performed for metagenomic analysis in order to investigate the bacterial diversity within the cores. This revealed that bacterial reads comprised between 1–5 % of total reads and Actinobacteria , including Microbacterium, were found to be present in both sediment cores, but in higher in abundance within Artic sediment [47].…”

“…Although no antimicrobial activity was detected, analysis of the tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) data at the genus level resulted in a molecular network comprising 1652 nodes. Further investigation into the Pseudonocardia strains isolated from the upper, middle and lower sections of sediment core BC043 revealed considerable chemical diversity across core depth, and therefore time, suggesting that sediment depth influences chemical diversity [47].…”