With rising global temperatures, permafrost carbon stores are vulnerable to microbial degradation. The enzyme latch theory states that polyphenols should accumulate in saturated peatlands due to diminished phenol oxidase activity, inhibiting resident microbes and promoting carbon stabilization. Pairing microbiome and geochemical measurements along a permafrost thaw-induced saturation gradient in Stordalen Mire, a model Arctic peatland, we confirmed a negative relationship between phenol oxidase expression and saturation but failed to support other trends predicted by the enzyme latch. To inventory alternative polyphenol removal strategies, we built CAMPER, a gene annotation tool leveraging polyphenol enzyme knowledge gleaned across microbial ecosystems. Applying CAMPER to genome-resolved metatranscriptomes, we identified genes for diverse polyphenol-active enzymes expressed by various microbial lineages under a range of redox conditions. This shifts the paradigm that polyphenols stabilize carbon in saturated soils and highlights the need to consider both oxic and anoxic polyphenol metabolisms to understand carbon cycling in changing ecosystems.

随着全球气温上升，永久冻土碳储存很容易受到微生物降解的影响。酶锁理论指出，由于酚氧化酶活性降低，多酚应在饱和泥炭地中积累，抑制常驻微生物并促进碳稳定。将微生物组和地球化学测量值与北极泥炭地模型 Stordalen Mire 中永久冻土融化引起的饱和梯度配对，我们证实了酚氧化酶表达与饱和度之间的负相关关系，但未能支持酶锁预测的其他趋势。为了盘点替代的多酚去除策略，我们构建了 CAMPER，这是一种基因注释工具，利用从微生物生态系统收集的多酚酶知识。将 CAMPER 应用于基因组解析的宏转录组，我们鉴定了各种微生物谱系在一系列氧化还原条件下表达的多种多酚活性酶的基因。这改变了多酚稳定饱和土壤中碳的范式，并强调需要考虑有氧和缺氧多酚代谢，以了解不断变化的生态系统中的碳循环。