Lipids comprise a significant fraction of sinking organic matter in the ocean and play a crucial role in the carbon cycle. Despite this, our understanding of the processes that control lipid degradation is limited. We combined nanolipidomics and imaging to study the bacterial degradation of diverse algal lipid droplets and found that bacteria isolated from marine particles exhibited distinct dietary preferences, ranging from selective to promiscuous degraders. Dietary preference was associated with a distinct set of lipid degradation genes rather than with taxonomic origin. Using synthetic communities composed of isolates with distinct dietary preferences, we showed that lipid degradation is modulated by microbial interactions. A particle export model incorporating these dynamics indicates that metabolic specialization and community dynamics may influence lipid transport efficiency in the ocean’s mesopelagic zone.

中文翻译：

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微生物饮食偏好和相互作用影响脂质向深海的输出


脂质在海洋下沉的有机物中占很大一部分，在碳循环中起着至关重要的作用。尽管如此，我们对控制脂质降解过程的理解是有限的。我们将纳米脂质组学和成像相结合，研究各种藻类脂滴的细菌降解，发现从海洋颗粒中分离的细菌表现出不同的饮食偏好，从选择性降解剂到混杂降解剂。饮食偏好与一组独特的脂质降解基因相关，而不是与分类学起源相关。使用由具有不同饮食偏好的分离物组成的合成群落，我们表明脂质降解受微生物相互作用的调节。包含这些动力学的粒子输出模型表明，代谢特化和群落动力学可能会影响海洋中层区的脂质运输效率。