Microbial consortia of sulfate-reducing bacteria metabolically coupled to methane-oxidizing archaea have important roles in nature. McGlynn et al. assessed the influence of interspecies spatial arrangements on biosynthetic activity in such consortia from deep-sea sediment incubations, using FISH, NanoSIMS and isotype probing. Interestingly, the biosynthetic activity of entire consortia was unrelated to the degree of mixing between archaeal and bacterial cells, and single-cell activity was independent of proximity to a syntrophic partner. The authors proposed a model for coupling in which electrons are transferred between species and flow freely across assemblies. Consistent with this, the genomes of archaeal consortium members encoded large multi-haem cytochromes, which are capable of electron transfer, and redox-based staining suggested the presence of redox-active haem proteins in the matrix between cells. The authors suggest that interspecies electronic coupling may facilitate the generation of stable syntrophic assemblages.
References
McGlynn, S. E. et al. Single cell activity reveals direct electron transfer in methanotrophic consortia. Nature http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature15512 (2015)
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Waldron, D. Wired communities. Nat Rev Microbiol 13, 661 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrmicro3577
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrmicro3577