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Environmental Adaptation of Psychrophilic Bacteria Subtercola spp. Isolated from Various Cryospheric Habitats

  • Microbial Ecology and Environmental Microbiology
  • Published:
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Abstract

Subtercola boreus K300T is a novel psychrophilic strain that was isolated from permanently cold groundwater in Finland and has also been found in several places in Antarctica including lake, soil, and rocks. We performed genomic and transcriptomic analyses of 5 strains from Antarctica and a type strain to understand their adaptation to different environments. Interestingly, the isolates from rocks showed a low growth rate and smaller genome size than strains from the other isolation sources (lake, soil, and groundwater). Based on these habitat-dependent characteristics, the strains could be classified into two ecotypes, which showed differences in energy production, signal transduction, and transcription in the clusters of orthologous groups of proteins (COGs) functional category. In addition, expression pattern changes revealed differences in metabolic processes, including uric acid metabolism, DNA repair, major facilitator superfamily (MFS) transporters, and xylose degradation, depending on the nutritional status of their habitats. These findings provide crucial insights into the environmental adaptation of bacteria, highlighting genetic diversity and regulatory mechanisms that enable them to thrive in the cryosphere.

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Data availability

The sequences of 6 strains reported in this paper have been deposited in the GenBank database (BioProject no. PRJNA378458).

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by a Grant from the Korea Polar Research Institute (PE23130).

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  1. Hanbyul Lee and Yong-Joon Cho have contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Polar Life Science, Korea Polar Research Institute, Incheon, 21990, Republic of Korea

    Hanbyul Lee, Yong-Joon Cho, Ahnna Cho & Ok-Sun Kim

  2. Department of Molecular Bioscience, Kangwon National University, Chuncheon, 24341, Republic of Korea

    Yong-Joon Cho

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  1. Hanbyul Lee
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Correspondence to Ok-Sun Kim.

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Lee, H., Cho, YJ., Cho, A. et al. Environmental Adaptation of Psychrophilic Bacteria Subtercola spp. Isolated from Various Cryospheric Habitats. J Microbiol. 61, 663–672 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12275-023-00068-y

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