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Across dozens of Pacific reefs, coral samples revealed dense communities of microbes living within the animals themselves rather than drifting in surrounding water.<\/p>\n
Rebecca Vega Thurber at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB<\/a>) analyzed the samples. She found that these microbes formed distinct, host-bound populations tied directly to coral life.<\/p>\n Nearly all of the genetic material recovered from those communities had never been recorded before, pointing to an immense reservoir of unseen biological diversity.<\/p>\n That concentration of unknown life within corals suggests the discovery captures only a narrow slice of a much larger chemical landscape still hidden inside reef ecosystems.<\/p>\n The teamwork of microbial alliances <\/p>\n Inside each colony, a living community of microbes -or microbiome \u2013 helped move nutrients and blunt disease pressure.<\/p>\n Those resident bacteria made small compounds during metabolism, and some of those compounds likely helped the coral defend itself.<\/p>\n Seawater nearby carried only a fraction of the same species, and their abundance dropped as samples moved farther away.<\/p>\n So corals were not just gathering random microbes, they were maintaining close partnerships that likely shaped their health.<\/p>\n A mysterious genetic frontier<\/p>\n When the team pooled the genomes, they found 16.3 million distinct genes, many with no known function.<\/p>\n About 34 percent were still uncharacterized, a sign that reef microbes carried biochemical instructions absent from better-studied ocean databases.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a huge treasure trove of genomic potential,\u201d said Thurber. By searching DNA directly, researchers could bypass years of trying to culture difficult microbes and achieve results faster.<\/p>\n Rewriting the search for ocean chemistry<\/p>\n For decades, sponges were the most popular among marine drug hunters, because they already had a reputation for producing unusual and useful chemistry.<\/p>\n After the researchers adjusted for uneven sampling, coral microbes still carried more linked genes that build natural compounds, called biosynthetic gene clusters<\/a>, than expected.<\/p>\n Measured per species, reef-building corals matched or surpassed sponges, the longtime stars of marine natural product discovery.<\/p>\n As a result, reefs became less of a side target and more of a main source for future searches.<\/p>\n Microbial gathering points<\/p>\n Among the animals tested, fire corals \u2013 which are more closely related to jellyfish than typical corals \u2013 stood out because they hosted far more microbes in their tissues.<\/p>\n Microscope images backed that up, showing many bacteria-sized cells outside coral cells, where these partners may exchange nutrients or signals.<\/p>\n Nearly 57 percent of all coral-associated genomes came from fire corals, more than stony and soft corals combined.<\/p>\n For that reason, fire corals became an obvious target for the study\u2019s most detailed hunt for unusual chemistry.<\/p>\n Unexpected chemical powerhouses<\/p>\n A standout group came from Acidobacteriota<\/a>, a bacterial branch found in many environments but rarely explored in corals.<\/p>\n Several newly found lineages from that branch packed in at least 15 molecule-making clusters, enough to flag them as super-producers.<\/p>\n \u201cNinety percent of what we found had never been found before,\u201d said Thurber.<\/p>\n With most of these bacteria tied to particular hosts, losing said hosts could erase entire chemical lineages at once.<\/p>\n A different way to build molecules<\/p>\n From one of those groups, the team characterized a new enzyme that built thiazole, a sulfur-containing ring found in many drugs.<\/p>\n Rather than using the usual energy-hungry route, this enzyme formed that ring through a different chemistry scientists had not described.<\/p>\n A molecule made by that system also reduced the activity of a human enzyme linked to inflammation by about half at very low concentrations.<\/p>\n Still, that laboratory result only marked a starting point, because useful molecules often fail long before becoming medicines.<\/p>\n Industrial potential beneath the reef<\/p>\n Useful molecules from reef bacteria were not limited to medicine, because the same chemistry can improve industrial products.<\/p>\n Some microbial compounds help cells grow, communicate, or defend themselves, and those traits can be repurposed in manufacturing.<\/p>\n \u201cThey can be used for drugs, or for industrial purposes,\u201d said Thurber.<\/p>\n That wide menu included laundry detergents, protein engineering, and concrete additives, all areas where unusual enzymes can change manufacturing.<\/p>\n The race against decline<\/p>\n All of this potential exists within ecosystems already damaged by repeated bleaching<\/a> events and rising ocean heat.<\/p>\n Live coral cover<\/a> worldwide has fallen by more than half since the 1950s, and bleaching strips corals of vital partners.<\/p>\n \u201cCoral reefs are doing really badly right now,\u201d said Thurber, warning that entire microbial lineages could vanish with them.<\/p>\n Every reef lost could take undocumented genes, new enzymes, and entire microbial species with it before anyone studies them.<\/p>\n The new genomes recast reef-building corals as rich sources of host-specific chemistry, not just habitat-forming animals in declining seas.<\/p>\n Scientists examined only three coral groups, so the reefs already under stress may still hold far more molecules than this survey revealed.<\/p>\n The study is published in the journal Nature<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2013<\/p>\n Like what you read? Subscribe to our newsletter<\/a> for engaging articles, exclusive content, and the latest updates.<\/p>\n Check us out on EarthSnap<\/a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls<\/a> and Earth.com.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2013<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Researchers have uncovered thousands of previously unknown microbes living inside coral reefs, each carrying genetic instructions for making…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":617505,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[64,63,128],"class_list":{"0":"post-617504","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=617504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617504\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/617505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=617504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=617504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=617504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}