Hedlund
Brian P.
Hedlund
Brian P.
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ArticleAncestral absence of electron transport chains in Patescibacteria and DPANN(Frontiers Media, 2020-08-17) Beam, Jacob P. ; Becraft, Eric D. ; Brown, Julia M. ; Schulz, Frederik ; Jarett, Jessica K. ; Bezuidt, Oliver ; Poulton, Nicole J. ; Clark, Kayla ; Dunfield, Peter F. ; Ravin, Nikolai V. ; Spear, John R. ; Hedlund, Brian P. ; Kormas, Konstantinos Ar. ; Sievert, Stefan M. ; Elshahed, Mostafa S. ; Barton, Hazel A. ; Stott, Matthew B. ; Eisen, Jonathan A. ; Moser, Duane P. ; Onstott, Tullis C. ; Woyke, Tanja ; Stepanauskas, RamunasRecent discoveries suggest that the candidate superphyla Patescibacteria and DPANN constitute a large fraction of the phylogenetic diversity of Bacteria and Archaea. Their small genomes and limited coding potential have been hypothesized to be ancestral adaptations to obligate symbiotic lifestyles. To test this hypothesis, we performed cell–cell association, genomic, and phylogenetic analyses on 4,829 individual cells of Bacteria and Archaea from 46 globally distributed surface and subsurface field samples. This confirmed the ubiquity and abundance of Patescibacteria and DPANN in subsurface environments, the small size of their genomes and cells, and the divergence of their gene content from other Bacteria and Archaea. Our analyses suggest that most Patescibacteria and DPANN in the studied subsurface environments do not form specific physical associations with other microorganisms. These data also suggest that their unusual genomic features and prevalent auxotrophies may be a result of ancestral, minimal cellular energy transduction mechanisms that lack respiration, thus relying solely on fermentation for energy conservation.
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ArticleInsights into the phylogeny and coding potential of microbial dark matter(Nature Publishing Group, 2013-07-14) Rinke, Christian ; Schwientek, Patrick ; Sczyrba, Alexander ; Ivanova, Natalia N. ; Anderson, Iain J. ; Cheng, Jan-Fang ; Darling, Aaron ; Malfatti, Stephanie A. ; Swan, Brandon K. ; Gies, Esther A. ; Dodsworth, Jeremy A. ; Hedlund, Brian P. ; Tsiamis, Georgios ; Sievert, Stefan M. ; Liu, Wen-Tso ; Eisen, Jonathan A. ; Hallam, Steven J. ; Kyrpides, Nikos C. ; Stepanauskas, Ramunas ; Rubin, Edward M. ; Hugenholtz, Philip ; Woyke, TanjaGenome sequencing enhances our understanding of the biological world by providing blueprints for the evolutionary and functional diversity that shapes the biosphere. However, microbial genomes that are currently available are of limited phylogenetic breadth, owing to our historical inability to cultivate most microorganisms in the laboratory. We apply single-cell genomics to target and sequence 201 uncultivated archaeal and bacterial cells from nine diverse habitats belonging to 29 major mostly uncharted branches of the tree of life, so-called ‘microbial dark matter’. With this additional genomic information, we are able to resolve many intra- and inter-phylum-level relationships and to propose two new superphyla. We uncover unexpected metabolic features that extend our understanding of biology and challenge established boundaries between the three domains of life. These include a novel amino acid use for the opal stop codon, an archaeal-type purine synthesis in Bacteria and complete sigma factors in Archaea similar to those in Bacteria. The single-cell genomes also served to phylogenetically anchor up to 20% of metagenomic reads in some habitats, facilitating organism-level interpretation of ecosystem function. This study greatly expands the genomic representation of the tree of life and provides a systematic step towards a better understanding of biological evolution on our planet.