School of Environmental and Life Sciences, The University of Newcastle, Callaghan, New South Wales 2308, Australia.
Biodesign Centre for Fundamental and Applied Microbiomics, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona 85287-1004, United States.
Environ Sci Technol. 2021 Apr 20;55(8):4899-4913. doi: 10.1021/acs.est.0c07952. Epub 2021 Mar 9.
Besides the ecotoxicological consequences of microplastics and associated chemicals, the association of microbes on plastics has greater environmental implications as microplastics may select for unique microbiome participating in environmentally significant functions. Despite this, the functional potential of the microbiome associated with different types of plastics is understudied. Here, we investigate the interaction between plastic and marine biofilm-forming microorganisms through a whole-genome sequencing approach on four types of microplastics incubated in the marine environment. Taxonomic analysis suggested that the microplastic surfaces exhibit unique microbial profiles and niche partitioning among the substrates. In particular, the abundance of and suggested that microplastic pollution may pose a potential risk to the marine food chain and negatively impact aquaculture industries. Microbial genera involved in xenobiotic compound degradation, carbon cycling, and genes associated with the type IV secretion system, conjugal transfer protein TraG, plant-pathogen interaction, CusA/CzcA family heavy metal efflux transfer proteins, and TolC family proteins were significantly enriched on all the substrates, indicating the variety of processes operated by the plastic-microbiome. The present study gives a detailed characterization of the rapidly altering microbial composition and gene pools on plastics and adds new knowledge surrounding the environmental ramifications of marine plastic pollution.
除了微塑料和相关化学物质的生态毒理学后果外，塑料上微生物的联合还具有更大的环境意义，因为微塑料可能选择参与具有环境意义功能的独特微生物组。尽管如此，与不同类型塑料相关的微生物组的功能潜力仍研究不足。在这里，我们通过对在海洋环境中培养的四种类型的微塑料进行全基因组测序的方法，研究了塑料和海洋生物膜形成微生物之间的相互作用。分类分析表明，微塑料表面表现出独特的微生物特征和基质之间的生态位分隔。特别是 和 的丰度表明，微塑料污染可能对海洋食物链构成潜在风险，并对水产养殖业产生负面影响。涉及外源化合物降解、碳循环以及与 IV 型分泌系统、共轭转移蛋白 TraG、植物-病原体相互作用、CusA/CzcA 家族重金属外排转移蛋白和 TolC 家族蛋白相关的基因的微生物属在所有基质上都显著富集，表明塑料-微生物组进行了多种过程。本研究详细描述了塑料上快速变化的微生物组成和基因库，并围绕海洋塑料污染的环境影响增加了新知识。
