Manganese Dependent Anaerobic Oxidation of Methane

Understanding the anaerobic oxidation is not only important for understanding hydrocarbon degradation but it also important for understanding the global carbon cycle. The anaerobic oxidation of methane (AOM) is a large sink for methane consuming 5-20% of today's methane flux (Valentine and Reeburgh, 2000), yet the requirements for this process are not well understood. It has been suggested that no other electron acceptors other than sulfate can be used in the AOM (Nauhaus, 2005). However, our new data suggests that manganese, in the form of birnessite, can be used as an electron acceptor instead of sulfate (Beal et al., in prep). Methane seep sediment from the Eel River Basin, CA was incubated with methane, 13C-labeled methane, and carbon dioxide. Because the net result of the AOM is the production of carbon dioxide from methane, the rate of the AOM in each of the incubations can be determined by measuring the incorporation of 13C in the carbon dioxide. Using this method, it was found that cultures incubated with nitrate showed inhibition of the AOM, while cultures incubated with iron gave inconclusive results. The only positive results that were found for alternate electron acceptors are the incubations that were given manganese and no sulfate, which showed methane oxidation. Further, when more manganese was injected into these incubations, the rate of AOM increased. Preliminary analysis of the microbial population using terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism (TRFLP) targeting the mcr gene showed an unidentified organism in these cultures. Future work with TRFLP, as well as clone libraries, will help to identify the organisms responsible for this process. Nauhaus, K., 2005, Environmental regulation of the anaerobic oxidation of methane: a comparison of ANME-I and ANME-II communities: Environmental microbiology, v. 7, p. 98. Valentine, D.L., and Reeburgh, W.S., 2000, New perspectives on anaerobic methane oxidation: Environmental Microbiology, v. 2, p. 477-484.