Diversity of gut methanogens and functional enzymes associated with methane metabolism in smallholder dairy cattle
Methane is a greenhouse gas with disastrous consequences when released to intolerable levels. Ruminants produce methane during gut fermentation releasing it through belching and/or flatulence. To better understand the diversity of methanogens and functional enzymes associated with methane metabolism...
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Published in | Archives of microbiology Vol. 204; no. 10; p. 608 |
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Main Authors | , , , |
Format | Journal Article |
Language | English |
Published |
Berlin/Heidelberg
Springer Berlin Heidelberg
01.10.2022
Springer Nature B.V |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | Methane is a greenhouse gas with disastrous consequences when released to intolerable levels. Ruminants produce methane during gut fermentation releasing it through belching and/or flatulence. To better understand the diversity of methanogens and functional enzymes associated with methane metabolism in dairy cows, 48 samples; 6 rumen fluid and 42 dung samples were collected from Kenyan and Tanzanian farms and were analyzed using shotgun metagenomic approach. Statistical analysis for species frequency, relative abundance, percentages, and
P
values were undertaken using MS Excel and IBM SPSS statistics 20. The results showed archaea from 5 phyla, 9 classes, 16 orders, 25 families, 59 genera, and 87 species. Gut sites significantly contributed to the presence and distribution of various methanogens (
P
< 0.01). The class Methanomicrobia was abundant in the rumen samples (~ 39%) and dung (~ 44%). The most abundant (~ 17%) methanogen species identified was
Methanocorpusculum labreanum
. However, some taxonomic class data were unclassified (~ 6% in the rumen and ~ 4% in the dung). Five functional enzymes: Glycine/Serine hydroxymethyltransferase, Formylmethanofuran—tetrahydromethanopterin N-formyltransferase, Formate dehydrogenase, anaerobic carbon monoxide dehydrogenase, and catalase–peroxidase associated with methane metabolism were identified. KEGG functional metabolic analysis for the enzymes identified during this study was significant (
P
< 0.05) for five metabolism processes. The methanogen species abundances from this study in numbers/kind can be utilized exclusively or jointly as indirect selection criteria for methane mitigation. When targeting functional genes of the microbes/animal for better performance, the concern not to affect the host animal’s functionality should be undertaken. Future studies should consider taxonomically categorizing unclassified species. |
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Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 |
ISSN: | 0302-8933 1432-072X |
DOI: | 10.1007/s00203-022-03187-z |