State Key Laboratory of Bioreactor Engineering and Institute of Applied Chemistry, East China University of Science and Technology, 130 Meilong Road, Xuhui District, Shanghai, 200237, People's Republic of China.
Department of Pediatrics, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, San Diego, CA, 92093-0760, USA.
Microbiome. 2018 Jan 5;6(1):5. doi: 10.1186/s40168-017-0392-1.
Microorganisms have long been associated with oxic and anoxic degradation of hydrocarbons in oil reservoirs and oil production facilities. While we can readily determine the abundance of microorganisms in the reservoir and study their activity in the laboratory, it has been challenging to resolve what microbes are actively participating in crude oil degradation in situ and to gain insight into what metabolic pathways they deploy.
Here, we describe the metabolic potential and in situ activity of microbial communities obtained from the Jiangsu Oil Reservoir (China) by an integrated metagenomics and metatranscriptomics approach. Almost complete genome sequences obtained by differential binning highlight the distinct capability of different community members to degrade hydrocarbons under oxic or anoxic condition. Transcriptomic data delineate active members of the community and give insights that Acinetobacter species completely oxidize alkanes into carbon dioxide with the involvement of oxygen, and Archaeoglobus species mainly ferment alkanes to generate acetate which could be consumed by Methanosaeta species. Furthermore, nutritional requirements based on amino acid and vitamin auxotrophies suggest a complex network of interactions and dependencies among active community members that go beyond classical syntrophic exchanges; this network defines community composition and microbial ecology in oil reservoirs undergoing secondary recovery.
Our data expand current knowledge of the metabolic potential and role in hydrocarbon metabolism of individual members of thermophilic microbial communities from an oil reservoir. The study also reveals potential metabolic exchanges based on vitamin and amino acid auxotrophies indicating the presence of complex network of interactions between microbial taxa within the community.
微生物长期以来与油藏和采油设施中的好氧和缺氧条件下的烃类降解有关。虽然我们可以很容易地确定储层中微生物的丰度，并在实验室中研究它们的活性，但要确定哪些微生物正在积极参与现场原油降解，并深入了解它们所部署的代谢途径，一直具有挑战性。
本文通过综合宏基因组学和宏转录组学方法，描述了从中国江苏油田获得的微生物群落的代谢潜力和原位活性。通过差异分箱获得的几乎完整的基因组序列突出了不同群落成员在好氧或缺氧条件下降解烃类的独特能力。转录组数据描绘了群落的活跃成员，并提供了一些见解，即不动杆菌属物种完全将烷烃氧化成二氧化碳，涉及氧气，而古菌属物种主要将烷烃发酵生成乙酸盐，乙酸盐可被产甲烷菌属物种消耗。此外，基于氨基酸和维生素营养缺陷型的营养需求表明，活跃的群落成员之间存在复杂的相互作用和依赖关系网络，超越了经典的共代谢交换；该网络定义了正在进行二次采油的油藏中群落的组成和微生物生态。
我们的数据扩展了对来自油藏的嗜热微生物群落中单个成员的代谢潜力及其在烃类代谢中的作用的现有认识。该研究还揭示了基于维生素和氨基酸营养缺陷型的潜在代谢交换，表明群落内微生物分类群之间存在复杂的相互作用网络。
