Division of Biology and Biological Engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA.
Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA.
Science. 2021 Mar 5;371(6533):1033-1037. doi: 10.1126/science.abd1515.
Microbial production of antibiotics is common, but our understanding of their roles in the environment is limited. In this study, we explore long-standing observations that microbes increase the production of redox-active antibiotics under phosphorus limitation. The availability of phosphorus, a nutrient required by all life on Earth and essential for agriculture, can be controlled by adsorption to and release from iron minerals by means of redox cycling. Using phenazine antibiotic production by pseudomonads as a case study, we show that phenazines are regulated by phosphorus, solubilize phosphorus through reductive dissolution of iron oxides in the lab and field, and increase phosphorus-limited microbial growth. Phenazines are just one of many examples of phosphorus-regulated antibiotics. Our work suggests a widespread but previously unappreciated role for redox-active antibiotics in phosphorus acquisition and cycling.
微生物生产抗生素很常见，但我们对它们在环境中的作用的了解有限。在这项研究中，我们探讨了一个长期存在的观察结果，即在磷限制下，微生物会增加氧化还原活性抗生素的产生。磷是地球上所有生命所必需的营养物质，对农业至关重要，其可通过铁矿物的氧化还原循环来控制其吸附和释放。本研究以假单胞菌产生吩嗪抗生素为例，表明吩嗪类抗生素受磷调控，可通过氧化铁的还原溶解在实验室和野外中溶解磷，并促进磷限制微生物的生长。吩嗪类抗生素只是受磷调控的众多抗生素中的一种。我们的工作表明，氧化还原活性抗生素在获取和循环磷方面具有广泛但以前未被重视的作用。
