Department of Atmospheric Chemistry, Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Hahn-Meitner-Weg 1, 55128 Mainz, Germany.
Nat Commun. 2012;3:1046. doi: 10.1038/ncomms2049.
Methane in the biosphere is mainly produced by prokaryotic methanogenic archaea, biomass burning, coal and oil extraction, and to a lesser extent by eukaryotic plants. Here we demonstrate that saprotrophic fungi produce methane without the involvement of methanogenic archaea. Fluorescence in situ hybridization, confocal laser-scanning microscopy and quantitative real-time PCR confirm no contribution from microbial contamination or endosymbionts. Our results suggest a common methane formation pathway in fungal cells under aerobic conditions and thus identify fungi as another source of methane in the environment. Stable carbon isotope labelling experiments reveal methionine as a precursor of methane in fungi. These findings of an aerobic fungus-derived methane formation pathway open another avenue in methane research and will further assist with current efforts in the identification of the processes involved and their ecological implications.
在生物圈中，甲烷主要由原核产甲烷古菌、生物质燃烧、煤炭和石油开采产生，而真核植物的贡献则相对较小。在这里，我们证明了腐生真菌在不涉及产甲烷古菌的情况下也能产生甲烷。荧光原位杂交、共聚焦激光扫描显微镜和定量实时 PCR 证实这不是由微生物污染或内共生体造成的。我们的研究结果表明，真菌细胞在有氧条件下存在一种常见的甲烷形成途径，从而确定真菌是环境中甲烷的另一个来源。稳定碳同位素标记实验表明甲硫氨酸是真菌中甲烷的前体。这些关于有氧真菌衍生的甲烷形成途径的发现为甲烷研究开辟了另一个途径，并将进一步协助当前对所涉及过程及其生态影响的识别工作。
