{"id":238,"date":"2015-12-28T02:09:20","date_gmt":"2015-12-28T02:09:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/192.168.99.100:8080\/award\/genomic-biology-and-population-structure-of-dehalogenating-chloroflexi-in-deep-sea-sediments\/"},"modified":"2018-03-01T10:41:08","modified_gmt":"2018-03-01T18:41:08","slug":"genomic-biology-and-population-structure-of-dehalogenating-chloroflexi-in-deep-sea-sediments","status":"publish","type":"award","link":"https:\/\/www.darkenergybiosphere.org\/award\/genomic-biology-and-population-structure-of-dehalogenating-chloroflexi-in-deep-sea-sediments\/","title":{"rendered":"Genomic biology and population structure of dehalogenating Chloroflexi in deep sea sediments"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Dehalogenating <i>Chloroflexi<\/i>, such as <i>Dehalococcoides<\/i> (Dhc) strains, are members of the rare biosphere and were originally discovered as the key microbes mediating reductive dehalogenation of the prevalent groundwater contaminants tetrachloroethene (PCE) and trichloroethene (TCE) to ethene. Molecular and our genomic studies on the key enzymes, reductive dehalogenase encoded by rdh genes, have provided evidence for the rapid adaptive evolution of Dhc and rdh. <i>Dehalococcoides<\/i> are slow growing, highly niche adapted, strictly anaerobic microbes, that depend on a supporting microbial community for electron donor and cofactor requirements among other factors. Besides these interesting metabolic interactions, the more profound question though is: what is the metabolic life style of Dhc in the absence of anthropogenic contaminants? The genomic analysis of single cells obtained in this work from deep-\u00ad\u2010sea sediments of the Peruvian Margin clearly revealed that these <i>Chloroflexi<\/i>are related to terrestrial reductively dehalogenating <i>Dehaloccodia<\/i>, yet carry no reductive dehalogenases, and instead have a lifestyle as homoacetogenic bacteria. Interestingly and importantly, we discovered a gene encoding a formate dehydrogenase (FdnI) with reciprocal closest identity to the formate dehydrogenase-\u00ad\u2010like protein (complex iron sulfur molybdoenzyme, CISM) of terrestrial<i>Dehalococcoides<\/i>\/<i>Dehalogenimonas<\/i> spp. This finding of a close functional homolog provides an important missing link for understanding the origin and the metabolic core of terrestrial <i>Dehalococcoides<\/i>\/<i>Dehalogenimonas<\/i> spp. and of reductive dehalogenation, as well as the biology of abundant deep-\u00ad\u2010sea <i>Chloroflexi<\/i>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","meta":[],"award_type":[11],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.darkenergybiosphere.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/awards\/238"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.darkenergybiosphere.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/awards"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.darkenergybiosphere.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/award"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.darkenergybiosphere.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"award_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.darkenergybiosphere.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/award_type?post=238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}