Integration of Untargeted Metabolomics and Microbial Community Analyses to Characterize Distinct Deep-Sea Methane Seeps.

Deep-sea methane seeps host highly diverse microbial communities whose biological diversity is distinct from other marine habitats. Coupled with microbial community analysis, untargeted metabolomics of environmental samples using high resolution tandem mass spectrometry provides unprecedented access to the unique specialized metabolisms of these chemosynthetic microorganisms. In addition, the diverse microbial natural products are of broad interest due to their potential applications for human and environmental health and well-being.

A novel uncultured heterotrophic bacterial associate of the cyanobacterium Moorea producens JHB.

Background: Filamentous tropical marine cyanobacteria such as Moorea producens strain JHB possess a rich community of heterotrophic bacteria on their polysaccharide sheaths; however, these bacterial communities have not yet been adequately studied or characterized.

Results And Discussion: Through efforts to sequence the genome of this cyanobacterial strain, the 5.99 MB genome of an unknown bacterium emerged from the metagenomic information, named here as Mor1.