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Volume 170, Issue 3

Microbial biofilms on macroalgae harbour diverse integron gene cassettes Open Access

Abstract

Integrons are genetic platforms that capture, rearrange and express mobile modules called gene cassettes. The best characterized gene cassettes encode antibiotic resistance, but the function of most integron gene cassettes remains unknown. Functional predictions suggest that many gene cassettes could encode proteins that facilitate interactions with other cells and with the extracellular environment. Because cell interactions are essential for biofilm stability, we sequenced gene cassettes from biofilms growing on the surface of the marine macroalgae and . Algal samples were obtained from coastal rock platforms around Sydney, Australia, using seawater as a control. We demonstrated that integrons in microbial biofilms did not sample genes randomly from the surrounding seawater, but harboured specific functions that potentially provided an adaptive advantage to both the bacterial cells in biofilm communities and their macroalgal host. Further, integron gene cassettes had a well-defined spatial distribution, suggesting that each bacterial biofilm acquired these genetic elements via sampling from a large but localized pool of gene cassettes. These findings suggest two forms of filtering: a selective acquisition of different integron-containing bacterial species into the distinct biofilms on and surfaces, and a selective retention of unique populations of gene cassettes at each sampling location.

  • Received:
  • Accepted:
  • Published Online:
Keyword(s): epiphytic microbial communities , holobiont , microbial adaptation , microbial interactions , microbiome and pangenome
© 2024 The Authors
  • This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. This article was made open access via a Publish and Read agreement between the Microbiology Society and the corresponding author’s institution.
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2024-03-15
2024-04-27
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Microbial biofilms on macroalgae harbour diverse integron gene cassettes
Microbiology 170, 001446 (2024); https://doi.org/10.1099/mic.0.001446
/content/journal/micro/10.1099/mic.0.001446
/content/journal/micro/10.1099/mic.0.001446
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