Researchers have found a strain of phage-resistant bacteria that can help sink Carbon to the bottom of the ocean.
The discovery sheds light on the constant battle between phage viruses as they try to infect bacteria, and the bacteria that try to develop immunity to the viruses. The research was conducted by a team from Ohio State University in the lab of the study’s senior author, Matthew Sullivan, professor of microbiology and civil, environmental and geodetic engineering and director of the Center of Microbiome Science.
Commenting on the finding, Marion Urvoy, co-first author of the study and a postdoctoral research associate in microbiology at Ohio State, said:
“We found that both metabolic and surface mutations caused the bacteria to get stickier, but only in surface mutants did those changes cause the cells to sink much more readily. That was very, very obvious. And that’s kind of cool when you think about it, because carbon export in the ocean is important. From past papers, we know that virus abundance is the best predictor of carbon export, more so than any other organism, but we don’t know all the mechanisms behind this. It’s possible that the selection of surface mutants through infection, which promotes the sinking of bacteria, is one explanation.”
Urvoy added, describing the various phage mutations of the bacteria:
“We showed for all of these mutations, whether they affect the cell surface or its metabolism, there’s a cost in terms of growth rates. That is to say the cells are growing slower, and if you affect the growth rate of an organism, you’re bound to affect other members of the community. We found this decreasing growth was more pronounced for the surface mutants – so they’re more resistant to more phages, but it comes at the cost of growing slower in general.”
Finally, describing the importance of the work and the impact it can have on dealing with climate change, Urvoy added:
“It’s important to understand what happens in the ocean because it affects climate globally. For microorganisms, we need to understand their impacts on carbon because they dictate whether carbon sinks or gets released into the atmosphere, and that outcome impacts our lives. Our work and other work is now showing that viruses, as a component of the marine microbiome, also play roles, perhaps quite centrally, and we need to understand how they affect bacteria and how that fits into the whole picture.”
You can find the original research here.