Biology subjects

Koblizek, M.

Publications and source records attributed to Koblizek, M..

11 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

Ancestral phototrophic Rhizobiaceae evolved in association with algae, then plants

Rhizobiaceae serve as classical models for elucidating mutualistic plant-microbe interactions yet they represent a narrow phylogenetic subgroup of Alphaproteobacteria. Studying additional lineages of Rhizobiaceae, we observed broad associations with oxygenic phototrophs beyond land plants, including early branching clades of submerged plants, multicellular and unicellular algae, as well as cyanobacteria. In particular, bacteria of the genus Hoeflea were often affiliated with cyanobacteria or microbial algae, whereas Peteryoungia spp. colonized roots of submerged plants. While both genera were originally described as nonpigmented heterotrophs, our detailed genomic, biochemical and physiological analyses revealed that most strains actually contained genes for anoxygenic photosynthesis. Under oligotrophic, oxic growth conditions, each characterized representative expressed bacteriochlorophyll a-containing functional photosynthetic complexes. Photosynthesis genes shared the highest homology among phylogenetically closest relatives, displaying topologies congruent to cognate house-keeping gene phylogenies, and maintained highly conserved gene synteny across the chromosomes of different species. Together, this indicated a vertical inheritance and long ancestral history of aerobic anoxygenic photosynthesis in Rhizobiaceae rather than multiple recent horizontal transfers. Subsequent time-scale phylogenetic analysis suggested that the last common ancestor of Rhizobiaceae was an aquatic phototroph, with different lineages of Rhizobiaceae consecutively evolving in association with algae, land plants, then later legumes. While aquatic lineages maintained photosynthetic machinery till today, Rhizobia which developed symbioses with land plants either as mutualistic endosymbiosis within root nodules or as plant pathogens, concomitantly lost photosynthetic capability. Based on our results, multiple biotic interactions with diverse oxygenic phototrophs drove the early evolution of Rhizobiaceae.

evolutionary biology↗

bioRxiv2025

Thermophilic bacteria employ a contractile injection system in hot spring microbial mats

Bacterial contractile injection systems (CISs) are multiprotein complexes that facilitate the bacterial response to environmental factors or interactions with other organisms. Multiple novel CISs have been characterised in laboratory bacterial cultures recently; however, studying CISs in the context of the native microbial community remains challenging. Here, we present an approach to characterise a new, bioinformatically predicted CIS by directly analysing bacterial cells from their natural environment. Using cryo-focused ion beam milling and cryo-electron tomography (cryoET) imaging, guided by 16S amplicon sequencing, we discovered that thermophilic Chloroflexota bacteria produce intracellular CIS particles in a natural microbial hot spring mat. We then found a niche-specific production of CIS in the structured microbial community using an approach combining shotgun metagenomics, proteomics, and immunogold staining. Bioinformatic analysis and imaging revealed CISs in other extremophilic Chloroflexota and Deinococcota. This Chloroflexota/Deinococcota CIS lineage shows phylogenetic and structural similarity to previously described cytoplasmic CIS from Streptomyces and probably shares the same cytoplasmic mode of action. Our integrated environmental cryoET approach is suitable for discovering and characterising novel macromolecular complexes in environmental samples.

microbiology↗

bioRxiv2025

Particle attachment drives seasonal abundance and photoheterotrophy of marine aerobic anoxygenic phototrophs

BackgroundAerobic Anoxygenic Phototrophic (AAP) bacteria are an essential component of aquatic microbial communities and play an important role in carbon cycling due to their ability to supplement their chemoorganotrophic metabolism with light-derived energy. While most of the previous studies focused on abundance, species composition and seasonal changes of AAP bacteria, their affinity for the particle-attachment did not attract much attention. Similarly, it remains unclear whether the entire AAP community is phototrophically active. This study investigated the seasonal changes in the composition of free-living and particle-attached AAP bacteria in the central Adriatic Seas coastal waters using both DNA and RNA pufM amplicon gene sequencing in the particle-attached and the free-living fractions. ResultsAAP bacterial abundance grew from 1.27 x 104 cells mL-1 in winter to 8.30 x 104 cells mL-1 in summer. The proportion of AAP bacteria was consistently higher in the particle-attached fraction, particularly in spring and summer. DNA and RNA pufM amplicon analyses revealed large differences in activity among the species forming the AAP communities. Additionally, DNA-based assessments underestimated the phototrophic activity of certain genera, demonstrating discrepancies between the gene presence and its functional activity. ConclusionsOur data demonstrated that the expression of phototrophic genes in AAP bacteria is not uniform and largely varies throughout seasons and fractions. The particle-attached fraction harboured more than twice as many active AAP bacteria as the free-living fraction, with seasonal shifts and lifestyle driving changes in the phototrophy gene expression. RNA and DNA libraries revealed discrepancies between total and active AAP bacterial communities, emphasizing the necessity of transcript-based approaches for accurately assessing photoheterotrophic activity in marine environments. The pronounced partitioning of AAP bacterial diversity and activity between free-living and particle-attached fractions indicated the ecological specialization of certain AAP lineages, which may have noteworthy implications for the consumption of particulate organic matter and, ultimately, carbon cycling in coastal waters.

microbiology↗

bioRxiv2024

Light-harvesting by antenna-containing rhodopsins in pelagic Asgard archaea

Aquatic bacterial rhodopsin proton pumps have been recently reported to utilize hydroxylated carotenoids1,2. Here, by combining a marine chromophore extract with purified archaeal rhodopsins identified in marine metagenomes, we report on light energy transfer from diverse hydroxylated carotenoids (lutein, diatoxanthin, and fucoxanthin) to heimdallarchaeial rhodopsins (HeimdallRs)3,4 from uncultured marine planktonic members of the "Ca. Kariarchaeaceae" ("Ca. Asgardarchaeota")5. These light-harvesting antennas absorb in the blue-light range and transfer energy to the green-light absorbing retinal chromophore within HeimdallRs. Furthermore, antenna enhancement of proton pumping by HeimdallRs is also observed under white-light illumination along with a carotenoid-binding-induced structural change in the protein. Our results indicate that the use of light-harvesting antennas in microbial rhodopsins is observed not only in bacteria but also in marine archaea.

microbiology↗

bioRxiv2024

On the Evolution of Chromosomal Regions with High Gene Strand Bias in Bacteria

On circular bacterial chromosomes, the majority of genes are coded on the leading strand. This gene strand bias (GSB) ranges from up to 85% in some Bacillota to little more than 50% in other phyla. The factors defining the extent of the GSB remain to be found. Here, we report that species in the phylum Gemmatimonadota share a unique chromosome architecture, distinct from neighboring phyla: In a conserved 600 kb region around the terminus of replication, almost all genes were located on the leading strands while on the remaining part of the chromosome the strand preference was more balanced. The high strand bias (HSB) region harbors the rRNA clusters, core, and highly expressed genes. Selective pressure for reduction of collisions with DNA replication to minimize detrimental mutations can explain the conservation of essential genes in this region. Repetitive and mobile elements are underrepresented, suggesting reduced recombination frequency by structural isolation from other parts of the chromosome. We propose that the HSB region forms a distinct chromosomal domain. Gemmatimonadota chromosomes evolved mainly by expansion through horizontal gene transfer and duplications outside of the ancient HSB region. In support of our hypothesis, we could further identify two Spiroplasma strains on a similar evolutionary path. ImportanceOn bacterial chromosomes, a preferred location of genes on the leading strand has evolved to reduce conflicts between replication and transcription. Despite a vast body of research, the question why bacteria show large differences in their GSB is still not solved. The discovery of hybrid chromosomes in different phyla, including Gemmatimonadota, in which a conserved high GSB is found exclusively in a region at ter, points towards a role of nucleoid structure, additional to replication, in the evolution of strand preferences. A fine-grained structural analysis of the ever-increasing number of available bacterial genomes could help to better understand the forces that shape the sequential and spatial organization of the cells information content.

evolutionary biology↗

bioRxiv2023

Winners in good times and bad times: Aerobic anoxygenic phototrophic bacteria profit from photoheterotrophy under carbon-rich and poor conditions

O_FIG O_LINKSMALLFIG WIDTH=200 HEIGHT=134 SRC="FIGDIR/small/572764v1_ufig1.gif" ALT="Figure 1"> View larger version (30K): org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@1e52797org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@18a568forg.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@138e2c5org.highwire.dtl.DTLVardef@1b0224c_HPS_FORMAT_FIGEXP M_FIG C_FIG Aerobic Anoxygenic Phototrophic (AAP) bacteria are an important component of freshwater bacterioplankton. They can support their heterotrophic metabolism with energy from light, and by that enhance their growth efficiency. Based on results from cultures, it was hypothesized that photoheterotrophy provides an advantage under carbon limitation and facilitates access to recalcitrant or low-energy carbon sources. However, verification of these hypotheses for natural AAP communities has been lacking. Here, we conducted whole community manipulation experiments and compared the growth of AAP bacteria under carbon limited and with recalcitrant or low-energy carbon sources under dark and light conditions to elucidate how they profit from photoheterotrophy. We found that it depends on the season. In spring, AAP bacteria induce photoheterotrophic metabolism under carbon limitation but they outperform heterotrophic bacteria when carbon is available. This effect seems to be driven by physiological responses rather than changes at the community level. In autumn photoheterotrophy is less beneficial. In both seasons, AAP bacteria responded negatively to recalcitrant or low-energy carbon sources in light. This unexpected observation may have ecosystem-level consequences as lake browning continues. In general, our findings contribute to the understanding of the dynamics of AAP bacteria observed in pelagic environments.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2023

Vertical distribution and light energy capture by AAP bacteria along contrasted areas of productivity in the Atlantic Ocean

Aerobic anoxygenic phototrophic (AAP) bacteria are a common part of microbial communities in the sunlit ocean. They contain bacteriochlorophyll a-based photosystems that harvest solar energy for their metabolism. Across different oceanic areas and regimes, AAP bacteria seem to be more abundant in eutrophic areas, associated to high chlorophyll concentrations. While most of these studies are based on surface samples, little information is available on their vertical distribution in euphotic zones of the major ocean basins. We hypothesize that AAPs will follow a similar structure to the chlorophyll depth profile across areas with different degrees of stratification. To test this hypothesis, we enumerated AAP cells and determined bacteriochlorophyll a concentrations along the photic zone of a latitudinal transect in the South and Mid Atlantic Ocean. We show that the distribution of AAP bacteria is highly correlated to the chlorophyll a concentration and the abundance of picophytoplankton across vertical and horizontal gradients. Furthermore, we estimate the light energy captured by AAP bacteria across the water column and find that, while they share a common latitudinal pattern of light capture with the picophytoplankton, they display a unique vertical arrangement with highest photoheterotrophic activity is in the surface ocean.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2023

Phenology and ecological role of Aerobic Anoxygenic Phototrophs in fresh waters

Aerobic anoxygenic phototrophic (AAP) bacteria are heterotrophic bacteria that supply their metabolism with light energy harvested by bacteriochlorophyll-a-containing reaction centres. Despite their substantial contribution to bacterial biomass, microbial food webs and carbon cycle, their phenology in freshwater lakes remains unknown. Hence, we investigated seasonal variations of AAP abundance and community composition biweekly across three years in a temperate, meso-oligotrophic freshwater lake. AAP bacteria displayed a clear seasonal trend with a spring maximum following the bloom of phytoplankton and a secondary maximum in autumn. As the AAP bacteria represent a highly diverse assemblage of species, we followed their seasonal succession using the amplicon sequencing of the pufM marker gene. To enhance the accuracy of the taxonomic assignment, we developed new pufM primers that generate longer amplicons and compiled the currently largest database of pufM gene, comprising 3633 reference sequences spanning all phyla known to contain AAP species. With this novel resource we demonstrated recurrent and dynamic seasonal succession of the AAP community. The majority of the species appeared during specific phases of the seasonal cycle, with less than 2% of AAP species detected during the whole year. Our results document the indigenous freshwater nature of the AAP community, characterized by high resilience and heterogenic adaptations to varying conditions of the freshwater environment. By integrating this information with the indicator of primary production (Chlorophyll-a) and existing ecological models, we show that AAP bacteria play a pivotal role in the recycling of dissolved organic matter released during spring phytoplankton bloom, contributing significantly to the ecological dynamics of lakes.

microbiology↗

bioRxiv2022

The development of intracytoplasmic membranes in alphaproteobacteria involves the conserved mitochondrial crista-developing Mic60 protein

Mitochondrial cristae expand the surface area of respiratory membranes and ultimately allow for the evolutionary scaling of respiration with cell volume across eukaryotes. The discovery of Mic60 homologs among alphaproteobacteria, the closest extant relatives of mitochondria, suggested that cristae might have evolved from bacterial intracytoplasmic membranes (ICMs). Here, we investigated the predicted structure and function of alphaproteobacterial Mic60, and a protein encoded by an adjacent gene Orf52, in two distantly related purple alphaproteobacteria, Rhodobacter sphaeroides and Rhodopseudomonas palustris. In addition, we assessed the potential physical interactors of Mic60 and Orf52 in R. sphaeroides. We show that the three -helices of mitochondrial Mic60s mitofilin domain, as well as its adjacent membrane-binding amphipathic helix, are present in alphaproteobacterial Mic60. The disruption of Mic60 and Orf52 caused photoheterotrophic growth defects, which are most severe under low light conditions, and both their disruption and overexpression led to enlarged ICMs in both studied alphaproteobacteria. We also found that alphaproteobacterial Mic60 physically interacts with BamA, the homolog of Sam50, one of the main physical interactors of eukaryotic Mic60. This interaction, responsible for making contact sites at mitochondrial envelopes, has been conserved in modern alphaproteobacteria despite more than a billion years of evolutionary divergence. Our results suggest a role for Mic60 in photosynthetic ICM development and contact site formation at alphaproteobacterial envelopes. Overall, we provide support for the hypothesis that mitochondrial cristae evolved from alphaproteobacterial ICMs, and therefore have improved our understanding of the nature of the mitochondrial ancestor.

evolutionary biology↗

bioRxiv2021

Whole genome phylogeny of Cyanobacteria documents a distinct evolutionary trajectory of marine picocyanobacteria

During their 2.7 Gyr long evolution cyanobacteria radiated into a large number of different lineages. To better understand the evolution of cyanobacteria we compared a whole genome phylogenetic tree using 1,047 concatenated single copy orthologues of Prochlorococcus marinus MIT9313 obtained from 93 reference prokaryotic species with traditional phylogenies inferred from 16S rRNA gene and 109 genes found in all used genomes. In contrast to the traditional phylogeny, our genome wide analysis shows a split between picocyanobacteria encompassing all marine Prochlorococcus species, marine "Synechococcus" species, and members of freshwater Cyanobium genus (altogether referred here as the "PSC" clade) and the remaining groups of extant cyanobacteria. To determine the influence of the horizontal gene transfer on the overall tree topology we removed the 374 genes identified as potentially transferred genes. A newly calculated tree utilizing the remaining 673 genes displayed the same topology as the former whole genome tree with the PSC clade as a basal group of all cyanobacteria. The picocyanobacteria also exhibited distinctly larger similarity to reference bacterias cell and genome size, carboxyzome architecture, various metabolic pathways, and chlorophyll synthesis than to the other cyanobacteria. Potentially horizontally transferred genes were found in connected chains throughout fundamental metabolic pathways suggesting that evolution of these genes was severely limited and or brought to a standstill. The environment related genes connected with metabolism of nitrogen, sulfur, and scarce seawater metals were more conserved in PSC group as they were already best tuned for its poor and stable environment. Other genes were found predominantly sequentially static as they were already accurately adapted with rare beneficial mutations. The PSC clade thus represents an isolated cyanobacterial lineage which followed a distinct evolutionary trajectory driven by its specific environment.

evolutionary biology↗

bioRxiv2019

In situ abundance and carbon fixation activity of distinct anoxygenic phototrophs in the stratified seawater lake Rogoznica

Sulfide-driven anoxygenic photosynthesis is an ancient microbial metabolism that contributes significantly to inorganic carbon fixation in stratified, sulfidic water bodies. Methods commonly applied to quantify inorganic carbon fixation by anoxygenic phototrophs, however, cannot resolve the contributions of distinct microbial populations to the overall process. We implemented a straightforward workflow, consisting of radioisotope labeling and flow cytometric cell sorting based on the distinct autofluorescence of bacterial photo pigments, to discriminate and quantify contributions of co-occurring anoxygenic phototrophic populations to in situ inorganic carbon fixation in environmental samples. This allowed us to assign 89.3 {+/-}7.6% of daytime inorganic carbon fixation by anoxygenic phototrophs in Lake Rogoznica (Croatia) to an abundant chemocline-dwelling population of green sulfur bacteria (dominated by Chlorobium phaeobacteroides), whereas the co-occurring purple sulfur bacteria (Halochromatium sp.) contributed only 1.8 {+/-}1.4%. Furthermore, we obtained two metagenome assembled genomes of green sulfur bacteria and one of a purple sulfur bacterium which provides the first genomic insights into the genus Halochromatium, confirming its high metabolic flexibility and physiological potential for mixo-and heterotrophic growth.

microbiology↗