Prakash Om, Chauhan Ashvini, Green Stefan J
Symbiosis Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability (SCCCS), Symbiosis International (Deemed University), Pune, India.
Environmental Biotechnology Lab, School of the Environment, Florida A&M University, Tallahassee, FL, United States.
Environ Microbiol Rep. 2025 Jun;17(3):e70108. doi: 10.1111/1758-2229.70108.
During the early evolution of life on Earth, the environment was largely free of molecular oxygen, and only anaerobic life existed. With the subsequent oxidation of oceans and the atmosphere, a wide range of environmental niches, ranging from anoxic to microoxic/hypoxic and oxic, developed. Despite this broad range of natural environments, microbiology as a field has focused on the physiology, metabolism, and genetics of aerobic microorganisms, with less attention paid to anaerobes and much less attention paid to microaerophiles. The disparity in studies between aerobic and anaerobic conditions is rampant in host-associated systems, particularly in human health, and studies of microorganisms in intermediate oxygen conditions between fully aerobic and fully anoxic conditions are exceedingly rare. Studies on the physiological behaviour, metabolism, growth response, and drug susceptibility patterns of commensal and pathogenic organisms are almost totally neglected in microoxic conditions. Furthermore, microorganisms from microaerobic and microoxic ecosystems have been less robustly explored in terms of physiology, growth, and metabolism. In this work, we highlight the importance of understanding the physiological and metabolic behaviours of microorganisms under hypoxic or microoxic conditions.
在地球生命的早期演化过程中，环境中基本没有分子氧，只有厌氧生物存在。随着海洋和大气随后的氧化，从缺氧到微氧/低氧和有氧的各种环境生态位得以形成。尽管存在如此广泛的自然环境，但作为一个领域的微生物学一直专注于需氧微生物的生理学、代谢和遗传学，对厌氧菌的关注较少，对微需氧菌的关注更少。在宿主相关系统中，尤其是在人类健康方面，需氧和厌氧条件下的研究差异非常普遍，而对完全需氧和完全缺氧之间的中间氧条件下微生物的研究极其罕见。在微氧条件下，对共生和致病生物的生理行为、代谢、生长反应和药敏模式的研究几乎完全被忽视。此外，来自微需氧和微氧生态系统的微生物在生理学、生长和代谢方面的研究也较少。在这项工作中，我们强调了了解微生物在缺氧或微氧条件下的生理和代谢行为的重要性。
