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Antarctic tundra soil metagenome as useful natural resources of cold-active lignocelluolytic enzymes

Journal of Microbiology volume 57, pages 865–873 (2019)Cite this article

Abstract

Lignocellulose composed of complex carbohydrates and aromatic heteropolymers is one of the principal materials for the production of renewable biofuels. Lignocellulose-degrading genes from cold-adapted bacteria have a potential to increase the productivity of biological treatment of lignocellulose biomass by providing a broad range of treatment temperatures. Antarctic soil metagenomes allow to access novel genes encoding for the cold-active lignocellulose-degrading enzymes, for biotechnological and industrial applications. Here, we investigated the metagenome targeting cold-adapted microbes in Antarctic organic matter-rich soil (KS 2-1) to mine lignolytic and celluloytic enzymes by performing single molecule, real-time metagenomic (SMRT) sequencing. In the assembled Antarctic metagenomic contigs with relative long reads, we found that 162 (1.42%) of total 11,436 genes were annotated as carbohydrate-active enzymes (CAZy). Actinobacteria, the dominant phylum in this soil’s metagenome, possessed most of candidates of lignocellulose catabolic genes like glycoside hydrolase families (GH13, GH26, and GH5) and auxiliary activity families (AA7 and AA3). The predicted lignocellulose degradation pathways in Antarctic soil metagenome showed synergistic role of various CAZyme harboring bacterial genera including Streptomyces, Streptosporangium, and Amycolatopsis. From phylogenetic relationships with cellular and environmental enzymes, several genes having potential for participating in overall lignocellulose degradation were also found. The results indicated the presence of lignocellulose-degrading bacteria in Antarctic tundra soil and the potential benefits of the lignocelluolytic enzymes as candidates for cold-active enzymes which will be used for the future biofuel-production industry.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by a grant to the Korea Polar Research Institute (PE19090) and by the Collaborative Genome Program of the Korea Institute of Marine Science and Technology Promotion (KIMST) funded by the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries (MOF) (No. 20180430).

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  1. Department of Systems Biotechnology, Chung-Ang University, Anseong, 17546, Republic of Korea

    Han Na Oh, Doyoung Park, Hoon Je Seong & Woo Jun Sul

  2. Division of Polar Life Sciences, Korea Polar Research Institute, Incheon, 21990, Republic of Korea

    Dockyu Kim

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  1. Han Na Oh
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Correspondence to Dockyu Kim or Woo Jun Sul.

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Oh, H.N., Park, D., Seong, H.J. et al. Antarctic tundra soil metagenome as useful natural resources of cold-active lignocelluolytic enzymes. J Microbiol. 57, 865–873 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12275-019-9217-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12275-019-9217-1

Keywords

  • metagenomics
  • lignocellulose degradation
  • SMRT sequencing
  • CAZy
  • cold-active enzymes
  • Antarctica