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Methane formation from long-chain alkanes by anaerobic microorganisms

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Abstract

Biological formation of methane is the terminal process of biomass degradation in aquatic habitats where oxygen, nitrate, ferric iron and sulphate have been depleted as electron acceptors. The pathway leading from dead biomass to methane through the metabolism of anaerobic bacteria and archaea is well understood for easily degradable biomolecules such as carbohydrates, proteins and lipids1,2. However, little is known about the organic compounds that lead to methane in old anoxic sediments where easily degradable biomolecules are no longer available. One class of naturally formed long-lived compounds in such sediments is the saturated hydrocarbons (alkanes)3,4,5. Alkanes are usually considered to be inert in the absence of oxygen, nitrate or sulphate6, and the analysis of alkane patterns is often used for biogeochemical characterization of sediments7,8. However, alkanes might be consumed in anoxic sediments below the zone of sulphate reduction9,10, but the underlying process has not been elucidated. Here we used enrichment cultures to show that the biological conversion of long-chain alkanes to the simplest hydrocarbon, methane, is possible under strictly anoxic conditions.

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Figure 1: Formation of gas in an anaerobic enrichment culture growing in 100 mineral medium with hexadecane (filled circles) as the only organic substrate.
Figure 2: Reconstructed phylogenetic trees based on 16S rRNA sequences that were retrieved from the methanogenic enrichment culture on hexadecane.

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Acknowledgements

We thank C. Garms, University of Hamburg, for synthesis of labelled hexadecane. We thank J. Oesselmann and A. Hilkert at Finnigan-MAT, Bremen, for providing the IRM-GC-MS, and N. Finke, Max Planck Institute, Bremen, for fatty-acid analysis. This study was supported by the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft and the Fonds der Chemischen Industrie.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, Celsiusstrasse 1, Bremen, D-28359, Germany

    Karsten Zengler, Ramon Rosselló-Mora & Friedrich Widdel

  2. Institute for Biogeochemistry and Marine Chemistry, University of Hamburg, Bundesstrasse 55, Hamburg, D-20146, Germany

    Hans H. Richnow & Walter Michaelis

Authors
  1. Karsten Zengler
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  2. Hans H. Richnow
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  3. Ramon Rosselló-Mora
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  4. Walter Michaelis
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  5. Friedrich Widdel
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Correspondence to Friedrich Widdel.

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Zengler, K., Richnow, H., Rosselló-Mora, R. et al. Methane formation from long-chain alkanes by anaerobic microorganisms. Nature 401, 266–269 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/45777

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