Background: Viruses are central to microbial community structure in all environments. The ability to generate large metagenomic assemblies of mixed microbial and viral sequences provides the opportunity to tease apart complex microbiome dynamics, but these analyses are currently limited by the tools available for analyses of viral genomes and assessing their metabolic impacts on microbiomes. Design: Here we present VIBRANT, the first method to utilize a hybrid machine learning and protein similarity approach that is not reliant on sequence features for automated recovery and annotation of viruses, determination of genome quality and completeness, and characterization of viral community function from metagenomic assemblies. VIBRANT uses neural networks of protein signatures and a newly developed v-score metric that circumvents traditional boundaries to maximize identification of lytic viral genomes and integrated proviruses, including highly diverse viruses. VIBRANT highlights viral auxiliary metabolic genes and metabolic pathways, thereby serving as a user-friendly platform for evaluating viral community function. VIBRANT was trained and validated on reference virus datasets as well as microbiome and virome data. Results: VIBRANT showed superior performance in recovering higher quality viruses and concurrently reduced the false identification of non-viral genome fragments in comparison to other virus identification programs, specifically VirSorter, VirFinder, and MARVEL. When applied to 120,834 metagenome-derived viral sequences representing several human and natural environments, VIBRANT recovered an average of 94% of the viruses, whereas VirFinder, VirSorter, and MARVEL achieved less powerful performance, averaging 48%, 87%, and 71%, respectively. Similarly, VIBRANT identified more total viral sequence and proteins when applied to real metagenomes. When compared to PHASTER, Prophage Hunter, and VirSorter for the ability to extract integrated provirus regions from host scaffolds, VIBRANT performed comparably and even identified proviruses that the other programs did not. To demonstrate applications of VIBRANT, we studied viromes associated with Crohn's disease to show that specific viral groups, namely Enterobacteriales-like viruses, as well as putative dysbiosis associated viral proteins are more abundant compared to healthy individuals, providing a possible viral link to maintenance of diseased states.

Bathyarchaeota, formerly known as the Miscellaneous Crenarchaeotal Group, is a phylum of global generalists that are widespread in anoxic sediments, which host relatively high abundance archaeal communities. Until now, 25 subgroups have been identified in the Bathyarchaeota. The distinct bathyarchaeotal subgroups diverged to adapt to marine and freshwater environments. Based on the physiological and genomic evidence, acetyl-coenzyme A-centralized heterotrophic pathways of energy conservation have been proposed to function in Bathyarchaeota; these microbes are able to anaerobically utilize (i) detrital proteins, (ii) polymeric carbohydrates, (iii) fatty acids/aromatic compounds, (iv) methane (or short chain alkane) and methylated compounds, and/or (v) potentially other organic matter. Furthermore, bathyarchaeotal members have wide metabolic capabilities, including acetogenesis, methane metabolism, and dissimilatory nitrogen and sulfur reduction, and they also have potential interactions with anaerobic methane-oxidizing archaea, acetoclastic methanogens and heterotrophic bacteria. These results have not only demonstrated multiple and important ecological functions of this archaeal phylum, but also paved the way for a detailed understanding of the evolution and metabolism of archaea as such. This review summarizes the recent findings pertaining to the ecological, physiological and genomic aspects of Bathyarchaeota, highlighting the vital role of this phylum in global carbon cycling.

BackgroundAs a recently discovered member of the DPANN superphylum, Woesearchaeota account for a wide diversity of 16S rRNA gene sequences, but their ecology, evolution, and metabolism remain largely unknown.ResultsHere, we assembled 133 global clone libraries/studies and 19 publicly available genomes to profile these patterns for Woesearchaeota. Phylogenetic analysis shows a high diversity with 26 proposed subgroups for this recently discovered archaeal phylum, which are widely distributed in different biotopes but primarily in inland anoxic environments. Ecological patterns analysis and ancestor state reconstruction for specific subgroups reveal that oxic status of the environments is the key factor driving the distribution and evolutionary diversity of Woesearchaeota. A selective distribution to different biotopes and an adaptive colonization from anoxic to oxic environments can be proposed and supported by evidence of the presence of ferredoxin-dependent pathways in the genomes only from anoxic biotopes but not from oxic biotopes. Metabolic reconstructions support an anaerobic heterotrophic lifestyle with conspicuous metabolic deficiencies, suggesting the requirement for metabolic complementarity with other microbes. Both lineage abundance distribution and co-occurrence network analyses across diverse biotopes confirmed metabolic complementation and revealed a potential syntrophic relationship between Woesearchaeota and methanogens, which is supported by metabolic modeling. If correct, Woesearchaeota may impact methanogenesis in inland ecosystems.ConclusionsThe findings provide an ecological and evolutionary framework for Woesearchaeota at a global scale and indicate their potential ecological roles, especially in methanogenesis.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s40168-018-0488-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Searching for highly efficient and cost‐effective electrocatalysts toward the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) in alkaline electrolyte is highly desirable for the development of alkaline water splitting, but still remains a significant challenge. Herein, the rational design of Cr‐doped Co4N nanorod arrays grown on carbon cloth (Cr–Co4N/CC) that can efficiently catalyze the HER in alkaline media is reported. It displays outstanding performance, with the exceptionally small overpotential of 21 mV to obtain the current density of 10 mA cm−2 and good stability in 1.0 m KOH, which is even better than the commercial Pt/C electrocatalyst, and much lower than most of the reported transition metal nitride‐based and other non‐noble metal‐based electrocatalysts toward the alkaline HER. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations and experimental results reveal that the Cr atoms not only act as oxophilic sites for boosting water adsorption and dissociation, but also modulate the electronic structure of Co4N to endow optimized hydrogen binding abilities on Co atoms, thereby leading to accelerating both the alkaline Volmer and Heyrovsky reaction kinetics. In addition, this strategy can be extended to other metals (such as Mo, Mn, and Fe) doped Co4N electrocatalysts, thus may open up a new avenue for the rational design of highly efficient transition metal nitride‐based HER catalysts and beyond.

Thorarchaeota are a new archaeal phylum within the Asgard superphylum, whose ancestors have been proposed to play possible ecological roles in cellular evolution. However, little is known about the lifestyles of these uncultured archaea. To provide a better resolution of the ecological roles and metabolic capacity of Thorarchaeota, we obtained Thorarchaeota genomes reconstructed from metagenomes of different depth layers in mangrove and mudflat sediments. These genomes from deep anoxic layers suggest the presence of Thorarchaeota with the potential to degrade organic matter, fix inorganic carbon, reduce sulfur/sulfate and produce acetate. In particular, Thorarchaeota may be involved in ethanol production, nitrogen fixation, nitrite reduction, and arsenic detoxification. Interestingly, these Thorarchaeotal genomes are inferred to contain the tetrahydromethanopterin and tetrahydrofolate Wood-Ljungdahl (WL) pathways for CO reduction, and the latter WL pathway appears to have originated from bacteria. These archaea are predicted to be able to use various inorganic and organic carbon sources, possessing genes inferred to encode ribulose bisphosphate carboxylase-like proteins (normally without RuBisCO activity) and a near-complete Calvin-Benson-Bassham cycle. The existence of eukaryotic selenocysteine insertion sequences and many genes for proteins previously considered eukaryote-specific in Thorarchaeota genomes provide new insights into their evolutionary roles in the origin of eukaryotic cellular complexity. Resolving the metabolic capacities of these enigmatic archaea and their origins will enhance our understanding of the origins of eukaryotes and their roles in ecosystems.

Marine Benthic Group D (MBG-D) archaea, discovered by 16S rRNA gene survey decades ago, are ecologically important, yet understudied and uncultured sedimentary archaea. In this study, a comprehensive meta-analysis based on the 16S rRNA genes of MBG-D archaea showed that MBG-D archaea are one of the most frequently found archaeal lineages in global sediment with widespread distribution and high abundance, including 16 subgroups in total. Interestingly, some subgroups show significant segregations toward salinity and methane seeps. Co-occurrence analyses indicate significant non-random association of MBG-D archaea with Lokiarchaeota (in both saline and freshwater sediments) and Hadesarchaea, suggesting potential interactions among these archaeal groups. Meanwhile, based on four nearly complete metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) and corresponding metatranscriptomes reconstructed from mangrove and intertidal mudflat sediments, we provide insights on metabolic potentials and ecological functions of MBG-D archaea. MBG-D archaea appear to be capable of transporting and assimilating peptides and generating acetate and ethanol through fermentation. Metatranscriptomic analysis suggests high expression of genes for acetate and amino acid utilization and for peptidases, especially the M09B-type extracellular peptidase (collagenase) showing high expression levels in all four mangrove MAGs. Beyond heterotrophic central carbon metabolism, the MBG-D genomes include genes that might encode two autotrophic pathways: Wood–Ljundahl (WL) pathways using both H 4 MPT and H 4 folate as C 1 carriers, and an incomplete dicarboxylate/4-hydroxybutyrate cycle with alternative bypasses from pyruvate to malate/oxaloacetate during dicarboxylation. These findings reveal MBG-D archaea as an important ubiquitous benthic sedimentary archaeal group with specific mixotrophic metabolisms, so we proposed the name Thermoprofundales as a new Order within the Class Thermoplasmata. Globally, Thermoprofundales and other benthic archaea might synergistically transform benthic organic matter, possibly playing a vital role in sedimentary carbon cycle.

We nonperturbatively investigate the ground state magnetic properties of the 2D half-filled SU(2N) Hubbard model in the square lattice by using the projector determinant quantum Monte Carlo simulations combined with the method of local pinning fields. Long-range Néel orders are found for both the SU(4) and SU(6) cases at small and intermediate values of U. In both cases, the long-range Néel moments exhibit nonmonotonic behavior with respect to U, which first grow and then drop as U increases. This result is fundamentally different from the SU(2) case in which the Néel moments increase monotonically and saturate. In the SU(6) case, a transition to the columnar dimer phase is found in the strong interaction regime.

Highlights d Exposure to the psychedelic drug DOI results in enduring molecular adaptations d Post-acute DOI unveils phenotypes akin to antidepressant adaptations d Concurrent occurrence of synaptic plasticity mediated via 5-HT