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Alsante A, Thornton DCO, Brooks SD. Effect of Aggregation and Molecular Size on the Ice Nucleation Efficiency of Proteins. ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY 2024; 58:4594-4605. [PMID: 38408303 PMCID: PMC10938890 DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.3c06835] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/21/2023] [Revised: 01/30/2024] [Accepted: 01/30/2024] [Indexed: 02/28/2024]
Abstract
Aerosol acts as ice-nucleating particles (INPs) by catalyzing the formation of ice crystals in clouds at temperatures above the homogeneous nucleation threshold (-38 °C). In this study, we show that the immersion mode ice nucleation efficiency of the environmentally relevant protein, ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (RuBisCO), occurs at temperatures between -6.8 and -31.6 °C. Further, we suggest that this range is controlled by the RuBisCO concentration and protein aggregation. The warmest median nucleation temperature (-7.9 ± 0.8 °C) was associated with the highest concentration of RuBisCO (2 × 10-1 mg mL-1) and large aggregates with a hydrodynamic diameter of ∼103 nm. We investigated four additional chemically and structurally diverse proteins, plus the tripeptide glutathione, and found that each of them was a less effective INP than RuBisCO. Ice nucleation efficiency of the proteins was independent of the size (molecular weight) for the five proteins investigated in this study. In contrast to previous work, increasing the concentration and degree of aggregation did not universally increase ice nucleation efficiency. RuBisCO was the exception to this generalization, although the underlying molecular mechanism determining why aggregated RuBisCO is such an effective INP remains elusive.
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Affiliation(s)
- Alyssa
N. Alsante
- Department
of Oceanography, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843, United States
| | - Daniel C. O. Thornton
- Department
of Oceanography, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843, United States
| | - Sarah D. Brooks
- Department
of Atmospheric Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843, United States
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Rahlff J, Esser SP, Plewka J, Heinrichs ME, Soares A, Scarchilli C, Grigioni P, Wex H, Giebel HA, Probst AJ. Marine viruses disperse bidirectionally along the natural water cycle. Nat Commun 2023; 14:6354. [PMID: 37816747 PMCID: PMC10564846 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-42125-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/23/2022] [Accepted: 09/28/2023] [Indexed: 10/12/2023] Open
Abstract
Marine viruses in seawater have frequently been studied, yet their dispersal from neuston ecosystems at the air-sea interface towards the atmosphere remains a knowledge gap. Here, we show that 6.2% of the studied virus population were shared between air-sea interface ecosystems and rainwater. Virus enrichment in the 1-mm thin surface microlayer and sea foams happened selectively, and variant analysis proved virus transfer to aerosols collected at ~2 m height above sea level and rain. Viruses detected in rain and these aerosols showed a significantly higher percent G/C base content compared to marine viruses. CRISPR spacer matches of marine prokaryotes to foreign viruses from rainwater prove regular virus-host encounters at the air-sea interface. Our findings on aerosolization, adaptations, and dispersal support transmission of viruses along the natural water cycle.
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Affiliation(s)
- Janina Rahlff
- Group for Aquatic Microbial Ecology, Department of Chemistry, Environmental Microbiology and Biotechnology (EMB), University of Duisburg-Essen, 45141, Essen, Germany.
- Centre for Ecology and Evolution in Microbial Model Systems (EEMiS), Department of Biology and Environmental Science, Linnaeus University, 39231, Kalmar, Sweden.
- Aero-Aquatic Virus Research Group, Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, 07743, Jena, Germany.
| | - Sarah P Esser
- Group for Aquatic Microbial Ecology, Department of Chemistry, Environmental Microbiology and Biotechnology (EMB), University of Duisburg-Essen, 45141, Essen, Germany
- Environmental Metagenomics, Research Center One Health Ruhr of the University Alliance Ruhr, University of Duisburg-Essen, 45141, Essen, Germany
| | - Julia Plewka
- Group for Aquatic Microbial Ecology, Department of Chemistry, Environmental Microbiology and Biotechnology (EMB), University of Duisburg-Essen, 45141, Essen, Germany
- Environmental Metagenomics, Research Center One Health Ruhr of the University Alliance Ruhr, University of Duisburg-Essen, 45141, Essen, Germany
| | - Mara Elena Heinrichs
- Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment (ICBM), Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, 26129, Oldenburg, Germany
| | - André Soares
- Group for Aquatic Microbial Ecology, Department of Chemistry, Environmental Microbiology and Biotechnology (EMB), University of Duisburg-Essen, 45141, Essen, Germany
- Environmental Metagenomics, Research Center One Health Ruhr of the University Alliance Ruhr, University of Duisburg-Essen, 45141, Essen, Germany
| | - Claudio Scarchilli
- Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA), 00123, Rome, Italy
| | - Paolo Grigioni
- Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA), 00123, Rome, Italy
| | - Heike Wex
- Atmospheric Microphysics, Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS), 04318, Leipzig, Germany
| | - Helge-Ansgar Giebel
- Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment (ICBM), Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, 26129, Oldenburg, Germany
- Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment (ICBM), Center for Marine Sensors (ZfMarS), Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, 26382, Wilhelmshaven, Germany
| | - Alexander J Probst
- Group for Aquatic Microbial Ecology, Department of Chemistry, Environmental Microbiology and Biotechnology (EMB), University of Duisburg-Essen, 45141, Essen, Germany
- Environmental Metagenomics, Research Center One Health Ruhr of the University Alliance Ruhr, University of Duisburg-Essen, 45141, Essen, Germany
- Centre of Water and Environmental Research (ZWU), University of Duisburg-Essen, 45141, Essen, Germany
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Amato P, Mathonat F, Nuñez Lopez L, Péguilhan R, Bourhane Z, Rossi F, Vyskocil J, Joly M, Ervens B. The aeromicrobiome: the selective and dynamic outer-layer of the Earth's microbiome. Front Microbiol 2023; 14:1186847. [PMID: 37260685 PMCID: PMC10227452 DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2023.1186847] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/15/2023] [Accepted: 04/24/2023] [Indexed: 06/02/2023] Open
Abstract
The atmosphere is an integral component of the Earth's microbiome. Abundance, viability, and diversity of microorganisms circulating in the air are determined by various factors including environmental physical variables and intrinsic and biological properties of microbes, all ranging over large scales. The aeromicrobiome is thus poorly understood and difficult to predict due to the high heterogeneity of the airborne microorganisms and their properties, spatially and temporally. The atmosphere acts as a highly selective dispersion means on large scales for microbial cells, exposing them to a multitude of physical and chemical atmospheric processes. We provide here a brief critical review of the current knowledge and propose future research directions aiming at improving our comprehension of the atmosphere as a biome.
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