Abstract
It is well known that cold environments are predominant over the Earth and there are a great number of reports analyzing bacterial adaptations to cold. Most of these works are focused on characteristics traditionally involved in cold adaptation, such as the structural adjustment of enzymes, maintenance of membrane fluidity, expression of cold shock proteins and presence of compatible solutes. Recent works based mainly on novel “omic” technologies have presented evidence of the presence of other important features to thrive in cold. In this work, we analyze cold-adapted bacteria, looking for strategies involving novel features, and/or activation of non-classical metabolisms for a cold lifestyle. Metabolic traits related to energy generation, compounds and mechanisms involved in stress resistance and cold adaptation, as well as characteristics of the cell envelope, are analyzed in heterotrophic cold-adapted bacteria. In addition, metagenomic, metatranscriptomic and metaproteomic data are used to detect key functions in bacterial communities inhabiting cold environments.
Highlights
Temperature is a key factor for bacterial survival
Traditional characteristics involved in cold adaptation entail structural adjustment of enzymes, maintenance of membrane fluidity, expression of cold shock proteins, adaptation of the translation and transcription machinery and the presence of compatible solutes [3]
The analysis showed that while the cold-shock family of proteins, cold-shock DEAD-box protein A, antifreeze proteins, fatty acid desaturase and trehalose synthase were present in all mat samples at different levels, the ice nucleation protein was only found at very low levels in some of the samples [67], probably reflecting the presence of generalized and particular mechanisms for cold adaptation in the bacterial communities
Summary
Temperature is a key factor for bacterial survival. Cold environments are predominant over the Earth. A great amount of information was generated analyzing bacterial adaptations to cold (e.g., [1,2,3,4,5,6]). We propose that, superimposed on generalized characteristics—almost universally present in cold-adapted bacteria—there are other specific features of each taxonomic group that are relevant and contribute to the adjustment of the whole cold adaptation landscape. Life 2018, 8, 8 metagenomic and metaproteomic data was analyzed to detect key functions in bacterial communities that inhabit cold environments
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