ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Extreme Microbiology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2025.1654373
This article is part of the Research TopicResearch on Soil Microorganisms in Agricultural Soil Remediation: Mitigating Emerging Contaminants for Sustainable Land ManagementView all articles
Roles of Mobile Genetic Elements and Biosynthetic Gene Clusters in Environmental Adaptation of Acidophilic Archaeon Ferroplasma to Extreme Polluted Environments
Provisionally accepted
- 1Central South University, Changsha, China
- 2China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, China
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Acid mine drainage (AMD), characterized by high concentrations of heavy metals and strong acidity, presents a significant challenge in environmental remediation. The acidophilic archaeon Ferroplasma facilitates soluble electron shuttles secreting and iron precipitate formation to immobilize heavy metals and demonstrating significant remediation capabilities in microbial consortia. However, its environmental adaptation mechanisms in highly polluted environments during remediation remain unclear. Biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs), which encode specialized metabolites with ecological roles, and mobile genetic elements (MGEs), known to mediate genomic function through gene disruption, rearrangement, and regulatory interference, represent crucial evolutionary means for environmental adaptation. In this study, Ferroplasma acidiphilum ZJ was screened from the traditional AMD of the Zijinshan copper mine, China. Then, it was sequenced, annotated and compared to three other sequenced Ferroplasma strains focusing on the distribution and function of genes concerning MGEs and BGCs. Genome-wide analysis indicated that MGEs, especially IS4 family insertion sequences (ISs) as well as genomic islands (GIs), were located close to functional regions, such as those related to heavy metal translocation, structural stability of cells, and the formation of archaeal ether-linked membranes. Further analysis showed Ferroplasma strains contained over 10 BGCs, with predicted functions spanning antibiotics, exopolysaccharide (EPS), and quorum sensing (QS). The Ferroplasma employed specialized MGEs and BGCs as key environmental adaptation mechanisms. This study provides a genetic framework for understanding the survival strategies of extremophiles in contaminated environments and explores the potential role of archaeal secondary metabolism (SM) in enhancing microbial processes for sustainable AMD
Keywords: environmental adaptation, bioremediation, secondary metabolism, mobile genetic element, Ferroplasma
Received: 02 Jul 2025; Accepted: 18 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Li, Ma, Huang, Chen, Begum, Ibrahim, Liang and Liu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Yili Liang, Central South University, Changsha, China
Xueduan Liu, Central South University, Changsha, China
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