Transposable Elements: A Toolkit for Stress and Environmental Adaptation in Bacteria

Ullastres, Anna; Merenciano, Miriam; Guio, Lain; González, Josefa

doi:10.1002/9781119004813.ch11

Cited by 7 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 81 publications

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“…The higher abundances of MGEs are consistent with the BCN microbial community being exposed to anthropogenic stresses such as higher pollution and variable nutrient pulses. 30 , 40 , 41 Similarly, highly impacted regions of the inner Baltic Sea have been shown to have higher abundances of transposases than in the adjacent marine waters. 42 …”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“… 29 Mobile genetic elements (MGE) promote genomic rearrangements and can take part in transfer of functional genes. 30 In an environment exposed to pollutants, this can help spread genes involved in tolerance to pollutants, but also create genetic variation in the form of, for example, regulatory modifications, that, when modifying expression of genes involved in ADOC-response, can be picked up by selection. 27 , 28 , 31 − 35 As high nutrient concentrations accelerate succession rates, 36 these favor the proliferation of MGE within the communities 36 − 38 potentially leading to an increase in evolvability through genomic rearrangements and gene transfer.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, pre-exposure of populations to low and high levels of contaminants modify the lag phase, rates, and extent of degradation. ,, On the other hand, it has been shown that the adaptation of phytoplankton to organic pollutants can be modulated by dissolved organic carbon . Mobile genetic elements (MGE) promote genomic rearrangements and can take part in transfer of functional genes . In an environment exposed to pollutants, this can help spread genes involved in tolerance to pollutants, but also create genetic variation in the form of, for example, regulatory modifications, that, when modifying expression of genes involved in ADOC-response, can be picked up by selection. ,,− As high nutrient concentrations accelerate succession rates, these favor the proliferation of MGE within the communities − potentially leading to an increase in evolvability through genomic rearrangements and gene transfer.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Responses of Coastal Marine Microbiomes Exposed to Anthropogenic Dissolved Organic Carbon

Cerro‐Gálvez

Dachs

Lundin

et al. 2021

Environ. Sci. Technol.

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Coastal seawaters receive thousands of organic pollutants. However, we have little understanding of the response of microbiomes to this pool of anthropogenic dissolved organic carbon (ADOC). In this study, coastal microbial communities were challenged with ADOC at environmentally relevant concentrations. Experiments were performed at two Mediterranean sites with different impact by pollutants and nutrients: off the Barcelona harbor (“BCN”), and at the Blanes Bay (“BL”). ADOC additions stimulated prokaryotic leucine incorporation rates at both sites, indicating the use of ADOC as growth substrate. The percentage of “membrane-compromised” cells increased with increasing ADOC, indicating concurrent toxic effects of ADOC. Metagenomic analysis of the BCN community challenged with ADOC showed a significant growth of Methylophaga and other gammaproteobacterial taxa belonging to the rare biosphere. Gene expression profiles showed a taxon-dependent response, with significantly enrichments of transcripts from SAR11 and Glaciecola spp. in BCN and BL, respectively. Further, the relative abundance of transposon-related genes (in BCN) and transcripts (in BL) correlated with the number of differentially abundant genes (in BCN) and transcripts (in BLA), suggesting that microbial responses to pollution may be related to pre-exposure to pollutants, with transposons playing a role in adaptation to ADOC. Our results point to a taxon-specific response to low concentrations of ADOC that impact the functionality, structure and plasticity of the communities in coastal seawaters. This work contributes to address the influence of pollutants on microbiomes and their perturbation to ecosystem services and ocean health.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Responses of Coastal Marine Microbiomes Exposed to Anthropogenic Dissolved Organic Carbon

Cerro‐Gálvez

Dachs

Lundin

et al. 2021

Environ. Sci. Technol.

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“…For example, TEs are reported to mediate metal resistance in the bacterium Cupriavidus metallidurans ( Monchy et al, 2007 ; Mijnendonckx et al, 2011 ) and the fungus Paecilomyces variotii ( Urquhart et al, 2022 ). TE-induced mutations can interrupt the promoter sequences of a gene and/or generate large genomic rearrangements involving several genes, which lead to an increase in host fitness ( Ullastres et al, 2016 ). In addition, TEs could also increase genetic variation by horizontal gene transfer (HGT), one of the major forces in the evolution of the prokaryotic genome, which plays a crucial role in the processes of adaptive evolution for environmental stress resistance ( Koonin et al, 2001 ; Thomas and Nielsen, 2005 ; Aminov, 2011 ; Sun et al, 2019 ; Rodríguez-Beltrán et al, 2021 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Enhancing the Phytoremediation of Heavy Metals by Combining Hyperaccumulator and Heavy Metal-Resistant Plant Growth-Promoting Bacteria

et al. 2022

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Heavy metals (HMs) have become a major environmental pollutant threatening ecosystems and human health. Although hyperaccumulators provide a viable alternative for the bioremediation of HMs, the potential of phytoremediation is often limited by the small biomass and slow growth rate of hyperaccumulators and HM toxicity to plants. Here, plant growth-promoting bacteria (PGPB)-assisted phytoremediation was used to enhance the phytoremediation of HM-contaminated soils. A PGPB with HM-tolerant (HMT-PGPB), Bacillus sp. PGP15 was isolated from the rhizosphere of a cadmium (Cd) hyperaccumulator, Solanum nigrum. Pot experiments demonstrated that inoculation with strain PGP15 could significantly increase the growth of S. nigrum. More importantly, strain PGP15 markedly improved Cd accumulation in S. nigrum while alleviating Cd-induced stress in S. nigrum. Specifically, PGP15 inoculation significantly decreased the contents of H2O2, MDA, and O2·− in S. nigrum, while the activities (per gram plant fresh weight) of SOD, APX, and CAT were significantly increased in the PGP15-inoculated plants compared with the control sample. These results suggested that the interactions between strain PGP15 and S. nigrum could overcome the limits of phytoremediation alone and highlighted the promising application potential of the PGPB-hyperaccumulator collaborative pattern in the bioremediation of HM-contaminated soils. Furthermore, the PGP15 genome was sequenced and compared with other strains to explore the mechanisms underlying plant growth promotion by HMT-PGPB. The results showed that core genes that define the fundamental metabolic capabilities of strain PGP15 might not be necessary for plant growth promotion. Meanwhile, PGP15-specific genes, including many transposable elements, played a crucial role in the adaptive evolution of HM resistance. Overall, our results improve the understanding of interactions between HMT-PGPB and plants and facilitate the application of HMT-PGPB in the phytoremediation of HM-contaminated soils.

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“…In summary, we evidenced that micropollutants degrade and drive microbial succession following repeated exposure. Mobile genetic elements (MGEs) function as genetic rearrangement in microorganisms, thus allowing microbial communities to tolerate or adapt to environmental disturbance, such as the presence of organic pollutants [84, 85]. Future work that considers quantification of MGEs using qPCR at successive time points when a microbial community is exposed to micropollutants, would help assess the contribution of MGEs expression to changes in microbial composition and degradation capacity.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Repeated introduction of micropollutants enhances microbial succession despite stable degradation patterns

Shen

Luo

et al. 2021

Preprint

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The high-volume release of micropollutants into natural surface waters has raised concern due to their environmental accumulation. Persisting micropollutants can impact multiple generations of organisms via press disturbances, but their microbially-mediated degradation and the influence on community assembly remain understudied. Here, freshwater microbial communities in microcosms were treated with four common micropollutants, alone or in combination, and then transferred in stages to fresh medium containing the same level of micropollutants to mimic the recurrent exposure of microbes under environmentally relevant conditions. Our results showed that the degradation of micropollutants was closely linked to the community succession, and that recurrent exposure to micropollutants enhanced the degradation capacity. The partitioning analysis of ecological processes revealed that community assembly was dominated by stochastic processes during early exposure, via random community changes, and by deterministic processes later in the exposure. Analyzing individual taxa abundances over time revealed two distinct bacterial responses, in which a larger proportion of sensitive than tolerant taxa was present in the disturbed communities, and the abundances of the most sensitive taxa were significantly associated with micropollutant degradation. This study clearly showed that microbial communities are generally vulnerable to persisting micropollutants in aquatic environments, which has important implications for pollution management, especially regarding microbial dynamics and ecosystem functioning in micropollutant removal.

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Transposable Elements: A Toolkit for Stress and Environmental Adaptation in Bacteria

Cited by 7 publications

References 81 publications

Responses of Coastal Marine Microbiomes Exposed to Anthropogenic Dissolved Organic Carbon

Responses of Coastal Marine Microbiomes Exposed to Anthropogenic Dissolved Organic Carbon

Enhancing the Phytoremediation of Heavy Metals by Combining Hyperaccumulator and Heavy Metal-Resistant Plant Growth-Promoting Bacteria

Repeated introduction of micropollutants enhances microbial succession despite stable degradation patterns

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