A long-term cultivation of an anaerobic methane-oxidizing microbial community from deep-sea methane-seep sediment using a continuous-flow bioreactor

PLoS One. 2014 Aug 20;9(8):e105356. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0105356. eCollection 2014.

Abstract

Anaerobic oxidation of methane (AOM) in marine sediments is an important global methane sink, but the physiological characteristics of AOM-associated microorganisms remain poorly understood. Here we report the cultivation of an AOM microbial community from deep-sea methane-seep sediment using a continuous-flow bioreactor with polyurethane sponges, called the down-flow hanging sponge (DHS) bioreactor. We anaerobically incubated deep-sea methane-seep sediment collected from the Nankai Trough, Japan, for 2,013 days in the bioreactor at 10°C. Following incubation, an active AOM activity was confirmed by a tracer experiment using 13C-labeled methane. Phylogenetic analyses demonstrated that phylogenetically diverse Archaea and Bacteria grew in the bioreactor. After 2,013 days of incubation, the predominant archaeal components were anaerobic methanotroph (ANME)-2a, Deep-Sea Archaeal Group, and Marine Benthic Group-D, and Gammaproteobacteria was the dominant bacterial lineage. Fluorescence in situ hybridization analysis showed that ANME-1 and -2a, and most ANME-2c cells occurred without close physical interaction with potential bacterial partners. Our data demonstrate that the DHS bioreactor system is a useful system for cultivating fastidious methane-seep-associated sedimentary microorganisms.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Archaea / genetics
  • Archaea / growth & development
  • Archaea / isolation & purification
  • Archaea / metabolism*
  • Base Sequence
  • Bioreactors / microbiology*
  • Gammaproteobacteria / genetics
  • Gammaproteobacteria / growth & development
  • Gammaproteobacteria / isolation & purification
  • Gammaproteobacteria / metabolism*
  • Methane / metabolism*
  • Microbiota*
  • Molecular Sequence Data
  • Seawater / microbiology*

Substances

  • Methane

Associated data

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Grants and funding

This work was partly supported by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) KAKENHI Grant Numbers 24687011 and 13J08869, and by a grant from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.