RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Community-wide epigenetics provides novel perspectives on the ecology and evolution of marine microbiome
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 2021.11.30.470565
DO 10.1101/2021.11.30.470565
A1 Hoon Je Seong
A1 Simon Roux
A1 Chung Yeon Hwang
A1 Woo Jun Sul
YR 2021
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/12/01/2021.11.30.470565.abstract
AB DNA methylation in prokaryotes is involved in many different cellular processes including cell cycle regulation and defense against viruses. To date, most prokaryotic methylation systems have been studied in culturable microorganisms, resulting in a limited understanding of DNA methylation from a microbial ecology perspective. Here, we analyze the distribution patterns of several microbial epigenetics marks in the ocean microbiome through genome-centric metagenomics across all domains of life. We show that overall, DNA methylation can readily be detected across dominant oceanic bacterial, archaeal, and viral populations, and microbial epigenetic changes correlate with population differentiation. Furthermore, our genome-wide epigenetic analysis of Pelagibacter suggests that GANTC, a DNA methyltransferase target motif, is related to the cell cycle and is affected by environmental conditions. Yet, the presence of this motif also partitions the phylogeny of the Pelagibacter phages, possibly hinting at a competitive co-evolutionary history and multiple effects of a single methylation mark.One-Sentence Summary DNA methylation patterns are associated with ecological changes and virus-host dynamics in the marine microbiome.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.