Identification of bacteria-derived urease in the coral gastric cavity

作者：Yiqing ZHOU,Kaihao TANG,Pengxia WANG,Weiquan WANG,Yan WANG,Xiaoxue WANG

摘要：Nitrogen cycle is critical to maintain a healthy coral reef ecosystem.Urea can provide a source of nitrogen for coral holobiont and is important for coral calcification through degradation by urease.Despite the involvement of coral-associated bacteria in nitrogen fixation,nitrification and denitrification are well recognized,to what extend urea degradation by bacteria contributing to the urea utilization by coral holobiont remains to be investigated.In this study,we demonstrate that the urea utilization is a common feature of Halomonas spp.that is a dominant genus in cultivable coral-associated bacteria.A urease operon was characterized by genome sequencing and gene knock-out technique in Halomonas meridiana SCSIO 43005,isolated from the gastric cavity of healthy scleractinian coral Galaxea fascicularis.H.meridiana showed high urease activity which was induced by urea and deletion of the urease operon reduced the capability to use urea as solo nitrogen source.Furthermore,approximately 1/3 coral-associated bacteria in the IMG/M database possess complete urease operons indicating the involvement of bacteria-derived ureases in coral holobiont.These results suggest that urease from coral-associated bacteria might be important player in the nitrogen cycling of coral reefs.

发文机构：Key Laboratory of Tropical Marine Bio-resources and Ecology Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory（Guangzhou） University of Chinese Academy of Sciences State Key Laboratory of Marine Resource Utilization in South China Sea

关键词：UREASENitrogencyclingGalaxeafascicularisScleractiniancoralHALOMONAS

分类号： Q958[生物学—动物学]