📢 New paper in @nature.com Microbes rock 🎸🤘 with sulfide and iron minerals I am very excited to share our recent study, which describes a previously unknown microbial energy metabolism ⚡⚡⚡🦠🧫⚡⚡⚡ 🆕 Microbial iron oxide respiration coupled to sulfide oxidation - MISO www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Hey Alex, please explain it to me briefly as you would to a moderately intelligent 5th grader. Thanks
www.univie.ac.at/en/news/deta...
BAM! Another versatile microbe superpower revealed!
Many congrats Alex, SongCan, Marc and the entire team! You rock :) (microbes as well, of course!)
Wow awesome, Congrat's Alex and authors!
Biogeochemical cycling is largely driven by microorganisms, yet sulfide oxidation by iron(III) oxide minerals - a critical step in the global sulfur and iron cycles in anoxic ecosystems - was considered to be a strictly chemical process.
We now show that this redox reaction also powers 🔋🔌 a new chemolithoautotrophic lifestyle of anaerobic microbes 🦠🧫
Main findings ✅ The genetic capacity for sulfur compound oxidation and iron(III) oxide respiration co-occurs in genomes from 37 phyla ✅ Desulfurivibrio alkaliphilus grows autotrophically by oxidizing dissolved sulfide or iron monosulfide (FeS) to sulfate with ferrihydrite as electron acceptor
✅ MISO outperforms the chemical reaction under environmentally relevant sulfide concentrations ✅ Key MISO genes are evolutionarily conserved in the family Desulfurivibrionaceae and widely distributed across marine, freshwater, terrestrial, and engineered environments
✅ A first estimate indicates that MISO accounts for 1-7% of total sulfide oxidation in marine sediments on a global scale
🆕 These findings extend understanding of the interplay of sulfur and iron biogeochemistry in anoxic marine and terrestrial environments, providing a new biological mechanism for phenomena of sulfide detoxification and cryptic sulfate formation.
🙌 I am deeply thankful to Song-Can Chen Marc Mussmann the other team members Nicola Battisti Guoqing Guan Maria A. Montoya and great collaborators Xiao-Min Li Jay Osvatic @ppjevac.bsky.social @envsysmicro.at @andreasrichter.bsky.social Arno Schintlmeister Wolfgang Wanek
From @cemess.bsky.social @microbesplanet.bsky.social for pulling this off💪
🙏 This work would not exist without support and funding from @univie.ac.at and @fwf-at.bsky.social #sulfide #ferrihydrite #sulfurcycle #ironcycle #ironoxide #microbiome #microsky #microbiomesky 🧫🦠
Looking forward to reading it :) Congrats!