Reichart Nicholas J, Bowers Robert M, Woyke Tanja, Hatzenpichler Roland
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT, United States.
Thermal Biology Institute, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT, United States.
Front Microbiol. 2021 Apr 21;12:668238. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2021.668238. eCollection 2021.
Enzyme stability and activity at elevated temperatures are important aspects in biotechnological industries, such as the conversion of plant biomass into biofuels. In order to reduce the costs and increase the efficiency of biomass conversion, better enzymatic processing must be developed. Hot springs represent a treasure trove of underexplored microbiological and protein chemistry diversity. Herein, we conduct an exploratory study into the diversity of hot spring biomass-degrading potential. We describe the taxonomic diversity and carbohydrate active enzyme (CAZyme) coding potential in 71 publicly available metagenomic datasets from 58 globally distributed terrestrial geothermal features. Through taxonomic profiling, we detected a wide diversity of microbes unique to varying temperature and pH ranges. Biomass-degrading enzyme potential included all five classes of CAZymes and we described the presence or absence of genes encoding 19 glycosyl hydrolases hypothesized to be involved with cellulose, hemicellulose, and oligosaccharide degradation. Our results highlight hot springs as a promising system for the further discovery and development of thermo-stable biomass-degrading enzymes that can be applied toward generation of renewable biofuels. This study lays a foundation for future research to further investigate the functional diversity of hot spring biomass-degrading enzymes and their potential utility in biotechnological processing.
在生物技术产业中，例如将植物生物质转化为生物燃料的过程，酶在高温下的稳定性和活性是重要的方面。为了降低成本并提高生物质转化效率，必须开发更好的酶促加工方法。温泉是未被充分探索的微生物学和蛋白质化学多样性的宝库。在此，我们对温泉生物质降解潜力的多样性进行了一项探索性研究。我们描述了来自全球58个分布的陆地地热特征的71个公开可用宏基因组数据集中的分类多样性和碳水化合物活性酶（CAZyme）编码潜力。通过分类分析，我们检测到了在不同温度和pH范围内独特的多种微生物。生物质降解酶的潜力包括所有五类CAZyme，并且我们描述了编码19种假定参与纤维素、半纤维素和寡糖降解的糖基水解酶的基因的存在与否。我们的结果突出了温泉作为一个有前景的系统，可用于进一步发现和开发可应用于可再生生物燃料生产的热稳定生物质降解酶。这项研究为未来进一步研究温泉生物质降解酶的功能多样性及其在生物技术加工中的潜在用途奠定了基础。
