Abstract
Organic sulfur compounds are not only essential for organismal survival but also indispensable for the sulfur cycle. Over the past few decades, dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP) and dimethyl sulfide (DMS) cycling in the upper ocean have been well characterized from the genetic to the ecosystem level. Recent advances in the study of marine sulfonate transformation have indicated that phytoplankton and microbes play key roles in oceanic sulfur and carbon fluxes. This review provides biochemical details of the major sulfur metabolites, and presents an interlinked reaction network with genetic information on the microbial transformation and mineralization of sulfur compounds. This review also discusses future prospects for the discovery and characterization of novel substrates and enzymes involved in organosulfur cycling, as well as for investigations of deep sea and sedimentary organic sulfur.
Highlights
Sulfur is an essential component of all life forms
Phytoplankton, which produce much labile organic sulfur, together with heterotrophic bacteria, plays a major role in the carbon and sulfur fluxes in the pelagic ocean via a large set of sulfur metabolites that are intertwined in the biochemical reaction network
Methylated sulfur compounds and sulfonate catabolisms allow the microbial acquisition of reduced sulfur and carbon from organic sulfur compounds
Summary
Sulfur is an essential component of all life forms. Over the past three decades, our understanding of the transformation of inorganic sulfur species with oxidation states ranging from −2 to +6 in the marine environment has dramatically improved, including the microbial oxidation, reduction, or disproportionation of sulfide (S2−), elemental sulfur (S0), polysulfides (Sn2−), thiosulfate (S2O32−), sulfite (SO32−), and sulfate (SO42−) (Friedrich et al, 2001; Pro et al, 2007; Klotz et al, 2011).
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