Le méthane (CH4) est un des principaux gaz à effet de serre. L’élevage est à l’origine d’un tiers du CH4 produit par l’activité humaine en Europe. En plus, la production de CH4 représente une perte de 2% à 12 % de l’énergie consommée par l’animal. La méthanogenèse est le résultat de l’activité d’un groupe de microorganismes particuliers - les Archaea méthanogènes. La production de CH4 permet de d’éliminer du milieu ruminal l’hydrogène produit au cours de la fermentation des aliments par les autres microorganismes (bactéries, protozoaires, champignons). En effet, l’accumulation d’hydrogène affecte le fonctionnement optimal du rumen. La réduction des émissions de CH4 par les ruminants présente donc un intérêt économique et environnemental non négligeable et passe inévitablement par une modification de l’écosystème microbien du rumen. L’objectif de ce travail de thèse était de relier la production de CH4 avec la structure et l’activité de la communauté méthanogène du rumen. Différents modèles de manipulation de l’écosystème microbien ruminal comme la défaunation (élimination des protozoaires) et l’utilisation d’aliments connus pour modifier la méthanogenèse ont été utilisés. Le rumen étant un écosystème complexe, les interactions fonctionnelles entre les Archaea méthanogènes et les autres microorganismes présents (bactéries et protozoaires) ont également été étudiées. Dans cette optique, des outils de biologie moléculaire, permettant de cibler les principales communautés microbiennes, ont été optimisés. Nos travaux permettent de conclure sur l’absence de relation claire entre le nombre (et/ou la concentration) des Archaea méthanogènes et la méthanogenèse dans le rumen. Cependant les réductions des émissions de CH4 ont été attribuées aux changements dans la diversité de la communauté méthanogène et la disponibilité en hydrogène. Ce travail de thèse a mis en évidence que les modifications de la composition et/ou de l’activité métabolique de la communauté des Archaea méthanogènes seraient à l’origine des réductions des émissions de CH4 par les ruminants. Une meilleure connaissance des mécanismes microbiens impliqués dans la production de méthane permettra d’envisager de nouvelles pistes pour diminuer les émissions chez les ruminants. / Methane (CH4) is a major greenhouse gas. Livestock contributes to one third of CH4 produced by human activity in Europe. Methanogenesis is the result of the activity of a specific group of microorganisms, the methanogenic Archaea. This natural process prevents hydrogen accumulation in the rumen, which may affect the optimal feed degradation, but it represents a loss of 2% to 12% of energy consumed by the animal. Reduction of CH4 emissions from ruminants presents therefore economic and environmental benefits and inevitably involves a change in rumen microbial ecosystem. However microbial mechanisms of CH4 production in the rumen are still poorly understood. The objective of this thesis was to relate the production of CH4 with the structure and/or the activity of the methanogenic rumen community. Different models of manipulation of the rumen microbiota such as defaunation (removal of protozoa) and the use of feed known to affect methanogenesis were used. Interactions between methanogenic Archaea and other microorganisms (bacteria and protozoa) were also studied in the complex rumen ecosystem. In this context, tools of molecular biology, to identify key microbial communities, were optimized. Our work allows to conclude that there is no clear relationship between the number of methanogenic Archaea and methanogenesis rate in the rumen. However, reduction in CH4 emissions could be attributed to changes in the diversity of the methanogenic community and the availability of hydrogen. This thesis has shown that changes in the composition and / or metabolic activity of methanogenic Archaea community were associated to the reductions in CH4 emissions observed in our animal trials. A better understanding of microbial mechanisms involved in the production of methane will consider new ways to reduce emissions in ruminants.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-04-01T12:09:01Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 4073387 bytes, checksum: 8309cf98c379c11892e9d5cd2fae29dd (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-12-01 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / Soil samples of native pasture (site A) and of soil cultivated with grass Paspalum conjugatum, Bergius (site B) collected from Caatinga vegetation in the semi-arid region in Paraíba state (07°23‟27 S 36°31‟58 W) were utilized for constructing four metagenomic libraries, aiming the evaluation of microbial diversity through amplification of gene 16S rRNA of domains Bacteria and Archaea. The metagenomic DNAs were extracted by utilizing FastDNA® SPIN Kit for Soil (BIO 101), which were amplified by PCR, by using universal primers 27F / 1525R (Bacteria) and 20F / 958R (Archaea). The purified fragments were linked to vector pGEM Teasy and transformed by thermal shock in chemically competent Escherichia coli DH10B. Transformants were cultivated in LB/Ampicillin medium (100 μM/ml), IPTG (800 μg/mL) and XGal (80 μg/mL) at 37ºC/18-20 h. A selection of 250 clones of each library was performed, sequenced and after discarding the low quality sequences and chimerics, 64 and 68 sequences were obtained (Bacteria) and 89 and 141 sequences (Archaea) from soils of sites A and B, respectively, which were compared to public bank of data RDB and NCBI (similarity >95%). In site A the phylum Acidobacteria (48.4%) was the most abundant, followed by phyla Bacteroidetes (10.9%), Proteobacteria (10.9%), and Firmicutes (6.3%). In site B Proteobacteria (45.6%) was the most abundant, followed by Firmicutes (10.3%), Acidobacteria (8.8%), Bacterioidetes (7.3%); and also Cyanobacteria (1.5%) and Planctomycetes (1.5%) which were not found in site A. Among the sequences obtained, 23.4% (site A) and 25.0% (site B) were not classified (similarity <95%). In the domain Archaea the phyla found were Euryarchaeota (3.4 and 45.4%) and Crenarchaeota (2.2 and 3.5%), in sites A and B, respectively; it should be observed that 94.4% and 51.1% of the sequences were not classified (similarity <95%), between sites A and B, respectively. Larger diversity (Shannon‟s índex), richness (Chao 1), and distribution (equity index) of communities were observed at species level, in the phyla Bacteria and Archaea, in both sites. The metagenomic libraries 16S rRNA of Bacteria and Archaea, when compared by using the LIBSHUFF program, differed significantly (p<0.0001). The results of the present study showed the occurrence of a great diversity of bacteria and archaea in that semi-arid environment, with peculiar features of elevated temperature and hydric limitations, emphasizing the possibility of investigations on search of new genes and/or microbial isolates with biotechnological potential. / Amostras do solo da pastagem nativa (sítio A) e sob cultivo do capim marrequinho (Paspalum conjugatum, Bergius) (sítio B), coletadas na região semi-árida do bioma Caatinga, Paraíba, (07°23‟27 S 36°31‟58 O), foram utilizadas para construção de quatro bibliotecas de clones metagenômicos, para avaliação da diversidade microbiana pela amplificação do gene 16S rRNA dos domínios Bacteria e Archaea. Os DNA metagenômicos foram extraídos utilizando FastDNA® SPIN Kit for Soil (BIO 101), os quais foram amplificados por PCR utilizando primers universais, 27F / 1525R (Bacteria) e 20F / 958R (Archaea). Os fragmentos purificados foram ligados ao vetor pGEM Teasy e transformados por choque térmico em Escherichia coli DH10B quimicamente competente. Os transformantes foram cultivados em meio Agar LB/Ampicilina (100 μ/mL), IPTG (800 μg/μL) e XGal (80 μg/μL), a 37ºC/18-20 h. Foram selecionados 250 clones de cada biblioteca os quais foram sequenciados e após descarte das sequências de baixa qualidade e quiméricas, foram obtidas 64 e 68, 89 e 141 sequências para Bacteria e Archaea, nos solos dos sítios A e B, respectivamente, as quais foram comparadas em banco de dados públicos RDB e NCBI (≥95% de similaridade). No sítio A o filo Acidobacteria (48,4%) foi o mais abundante, seguido dos filos Bacteroidetes (10,9%), Proteobacteria (10,9%), e Firmicutes (6,3%). No sítio B Proteobacteria (45,6%) foi o de maior destaque, seguido de Firmicutes (10,3%), Acidobacteria (8,8%), Bacterioidetes (7,3%); e ainda Cyanobacteria (1,5%) e Planctomycetes (1,5%), que não foram encontrados no sítio A. Entre as sequências geradas, 23,4% (sítio A) e 25,0% (sítio B) não foram classificadas (similaridade <95%). No domínio Archaea foram encontrados os filos Euryarchaeota (3,4 e 45,4%) e Crenarchaeota (2,2 e 3,5%), nos sítios A e B, respectivamente; destacando-se que 94,4% e 51,1% das sequências não foram classificadas (similaridade <95%), entre os sítios A e B, respectivamente. Uma maior diversidade (índice de Shannon), riqueza (índice Chao 1) e distribuição (índice de equidade) das comunidades foram observadas no nível de espécies, tanto para Bacteria como para Archaea, nos dois sítios. As bibliotecas de clones metagenômicos 16S rRNA de Bacteria e Archaea, quando comparadas, utilizando-se o programa LIBSHUFF, diferiram significativamente (p<0,0001). Os resultados desse estudo mostraram a ocorrência de uma grande diversidade de bactérias e arqueas, nesse tipo de ambiente pouco estudado e com características peculiares de temperatura elevada e limitações hídricas, com possibilidade de busca de novos genes e/ou isolados microbianos, com potencial biotecnológico.

Les ribonucléases et les hélicases à ARN sont des acteurs clé du métabolisme des ARN et jouent donc des rôles cruciaux pour la régulation de l'expression des gènes. Peu de données sont connues concernant ce métabolisme chez les Archées, le troisième domaine du vivant. L'équipe dans laquelle j'ai effectué mes travaux de thèse s'intéresse au métabolisme de l'ARN chez les archées et plus particulièrement aux ribonucléases ß-CASP. Dans ce contexte, nous focalisons nos études sur la compréhension physiologique que pourrait jouer les ribonucléases ß-CASP aCPSF1 et aRNase J, orthologue respectivement du facteur de terminaison de la transcription eucaryotes CPSF-73 et RNase J bactérienne. Par analogie avec CPSF-73 et RNase J, qui font partie de complexes multi-protéiques, des indices sur les fonctions des homologues archéens de ces ribonucléases pourraient provenir de l'identification des complexes autour de aCPSF1 et aRNase J. Utilisant des extraits de Pyrococcus abyssi et les protéines recombinantes aCPSF1 et aRNase J comme appâts, nous avons identifié que aRNase J fait partie d'un réseau d'interaction incluant une hélicase de la famille des Ski2-like (ASH-Ski2). En parallèle, des fractionnements d'extrait de P. abyssi sur gradient de saccharose par ultracentrifugation indiquent que aRNase J et ASH-Ski2 sont présentes toutes deux dans les fractions de haut poids moléculaires avec les sous-unités du ribosome et ceux de l'exosome. Nous avons aussi démontré une interaction stable entre aRNase J et ASH-Ski2 ainsi que des motifs impliquées dans cette interaction par des expériences de co- purification par chromatographie d'affinité. De plus, les caractérisations biochimiques de ASH-Ski2 indiquent que cette protéine possède une activité d'hydrolyse de l'ATP dépendant de la présence d'acides nucléiques. ASH-Ski2 possède de plus la capacité d'hybridation et de déroulement de deux brins d'acides nucléiques en présence d'ATP. A notre connaissance, nos résultats sont les premiers à indiquer un complexe contenant une ribonucléase et d'une hélicase à ARN Ski2-like chez les archées. De manière intriguent, aRNase J est orthologue de la RNase J bactérienne et ASH-Ski2 des hélicases Ski2-like des eucaryotes. Cela démontre que les Archées pourraient posséder un système composite impliqué dans le métabolisme des ARN partageant des caractéristiques bactériens et eucaryotes. Ces résultats mettent en lumière l'avantage de l'étude des Archées pour la compréhension des mécanismes moléculaires et évolutives des processus fondamentaux des trois domaines du vivant. / Ribonucleases and RNA helicases are the main actors of RNA processing and have a critical role in gene expression regulation. Little is known about this process in Archaea. Our group focuses in RNA metabolism in Archaea involving ß-CASP ribonucleases. Recently, we published phylogenomic and experimental work demonstrating that archaeal ß-CASP proteins, aCFSF1 and aRNase J, are highly conserved ribonucleases in Archaea. Archaeal aCPSF1, an ortholog of the eukaryal transcription termination factor CPSF73, is ubiquitous in Archaea suggesting an essential conserved function. Archaeal aRNase J, an ortholog of the bacterial ribonuclease RNase J, is conserved through a major phylum of the Archaea, the Euryarchaeota. These findings suggest that the role of these enzymes in RNA processing can be reminiscent of ancient functions that had arisen early in evolution. We now want to focus on understanding the physiological role of aCPSF1 and aRNase J with the hyperthermophilic euryarchaeal Pyrococcus abyssi as model. By analogy to eukaryal CPSF73 and bacterial RNase J, which are part of multiprotein complexes, clues to the function of the archaeal ß-CASP homologs might come from the identification of archaeal multiprotein complex(es) containing aCPSF1 and aRNase J orthologs. Using P. abyssi cell extracts and recombinant aCPSF1 or aRNase J as bait, we have found that aRNase J is a part of protein interaction networks that include Ski2-like RNA helicase (ASH-Ski2). In parallel, fractionation of P. abyssi whole cell extracts in sucrose gradient by ultracentrifugation shows that aRNase J and ASH-Ski2 are present in high sedimentation fractions with ribosomal and exosome sub-units. We also demonstrate a direct interaction of aRNase J with ASH-Ski2 by co-purification affinity chromatography experiments and identify motifs that potentially involve in this interaction. Biochemical characterization of ASH-Ski2 demonstrates a nucleic dependant ATPase activity. ASH-Ski2 also possesses annealing and unwinding activities in presence of ATP. To our knowledge, our results are the first experimental indications of interacting of a complex containing ribonuclease and RNA helicase-like proteins in Archaea. Remarkably, aRNase J is an orthologue of the bacterial RNase J and ASH-Ski2 is an orthologue of the eukaryotic Ski2-like family proteins. This shows that Archaea might possess a composite RNA processing system sharing both eukaryal and bacterial features. This highlights the advantage of an archaeal model to gain further mechanistic and evolutionary information of fundamental processes across the three domains of life.

Submitted by Alexandre Sousa (alexandre.sousa@incqs.fiocruz.br) on 2015-05-11T17:59:22Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação_Kayo_Bianco.pdf: 5086210 bytes, checksum: 14083186869c48adebe043f3e9e02a6c (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Alexandre Sousa (alexandre.sousa@incqs.fiocruz.br) on 2015-05-11T17:59:44Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação_Kayo_Bianco.pdf: 5086210 bytes, checksum: 14083186869c48adebe043f3e9e02a6c (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Alexandre Sousa (alexandre.sousa@incqs.fiocruz.br) on 2015-05-11T17:59:54Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação_Kayo_Bianco.pdf: 5086210 bytes, checksum: 14083186869c48adebe043f3e9e02a6c (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-05-11T17:59:54Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação_Kayo_Bianco.pdf: 5086210 bytes, checksum: 14083186869c48adebe043f3e9e02a6c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015 / Fundação Oswaldo Cruz. Instituto Nacional de Controle de Qualidade em Saúde / A contaminação fecal de corpos hídricos é uma das principais causas de doenças entéricas veiculadas pela água no mundo, responsáveis pela morte de mais de dois milhões de crianças por ano. As águas das bacias do rio São Joao e do rio Guandu vêm sendo destinadas ao abastecimento público da Região dos Lagos e da região metropolitana do estado do Rio de Janeiro. Os indicadores de contaminação fecal usualmente empregados na avaliação da qualidade microbiológica da água quanto a presença de patógenos entéricos são os coliformes termotolerantes, representados pela Escherichia coli, os quais estão associados com matéria fecal humana e de outros animais de sangue quente. Entretanto, para um gerenciamento mais efetivo deve ser identificada a fonte de contaminação fecal. Microrganismos anaeróbios, como a ordem Bacteroidalese as archaeas metanogênicas, vêm sendo apontados como bioindicadores alternativos de contaminação fecal hospedeiro-especifico. O presente estudo tem como objetivo avaliar a qualidade das águas das bacias do rio São João e do rio Guandu por meio da aplicação de biomarcadores moleculares capazes de revelar contaminações fecais suína, humana, equina e de ruminantes. Esta abordagem representa uma importante ferramenta na detecção de contaminação hospedeiro-específica de ambientes aquáticos, o que poderá contribuir para as ações preventivas de vigilância ambiental em saúde. / Fecal contamination of water bodies is a major cause of waterborne enteric diseases in the world, responsible for the deaths of more than two million children per year. The waters from São João river basin and Guandu river basin have been intended for public supply of the Lakes Region and the metropolitan region of the State of Rio de Janeiro. Indicators of fecal contamination usually employed to evaluate the microbiological quality of water for the presence of enteric pathogens are coliforms, represented by Escherichia coli, which are associated with human faecal matter and other warm-blooded animals. However,for a more effective management the source of fecal contamination should be identified. Anaerobic microorganisms, such as the order Bacteroidales and methanogenic archaea, have been identified asalternative biomarkers for host-specific fecal contamination. The present study aims to evaluate the water quality of São João river basinand Guandu riverbasinthrough the application of molecular biomarkers able to reveal swine, human, equine and ruminants fecal contamination. This approach represents an important tool in the detection of host-specific contamination of aquatic environments, which may contribute to prevention efforts for environmental health surveillance.

<p>The regulation of metabolism is one of the key challenges faced by organisms across all domains of life. Despite fluctuating environments, cells must produce the same metabolic outputs to thrive. Although much is known about the regulation of metabolism in the bacteria and the eukaryotes, relatively little is known about the regulation of metabolism in archaea. Previous work identified the winged helix-turn-helix transcription factor TrmB as a major regulator of metabolism in the model archaeon Halobacterium salinarum. TrmB was found to bind to the promoter of 113 genes in the absence of glucose. Many of these genes encode enzymes involved in metabolic processes, including central carbon metabolism, purine synthesis, and amino acid degradation. Although much is known about TrmB, it remains unclear how it dynamically regulates its ~100 metabolic enzyme-coding gene targets, what the effect of transcriptional regulation is on metabolite levels, and why TrmB regulates so many metabolic processes in response to glucose. Using dynamic gene expression and TrmB-DNA binding assays, we found that that TrmB functions alone to regulate central metabolic enzyme-coding genes, but cooperates with various regulators to control peripheral metabolic pathways. After determining the temporal pattern of gene expression changes and their dependence on TrmB, we used dynamic metabolite profiling to investigate the effects of transcriptional changes on metabolite levels and phenotypes. We found that TrmB-mediated transcriptional changes resulted in substantial changes in metabolite levels. Additionally, we showed that mis-regulation of genes encoding enzymes involved in gluconeogenesis in the &#916;trmB mutant strain in the absence of glucose results in low PRPP levels, which cause a metabolic block in de novo purine synthesis that is partially responsible for the growth defect of the &#916;trmB mutant strain. Finally, using a series of quantitative phenotyping experiments, we showed that TrmB regulates the gluconeogenic production of sugars incorporated into the cell surface S-layer glycoprotein. Because S-layer glycosylation is proportional to growth, we hypothesize that TrmB transduces a growth rate signal to co-regulated metabolic pathways including amino acid, purine, and cobalamin biosynthesis. Taken together, our results suggest that TrmB is a global regulator of archaeal metabolism that works in concert with other transcription factors to regulate diverse metabolic pathways in response to nutrients and growth rate.</p> / Dissertation

One of the most surprising realisations to emerge from metagenomics studies in the early ‘00s was that the population of viruses and phages in nature is about 10 times larger than the population of prokaryotic organisms. Thus, bacteria and archaea are under constant pressure to develop resistance methods against a population of viruses with extremely high turnover and evolution rates, in what has been described as an evolutionary “arms race”. A novel, adaptive and heritable immune system encoded by prokaryotic genomes is the CRISPR/Cas system. Arrays of clustered regularly interspersed short palindromic repeats (CRISPR) are able to incorporate viral or plasmid sequences which are then used to inactivate the corresponding invader element via an RNA interference mechanism. A number of CRISPR-associated (Cas) protein families are responsible for the maintenance, expansion and function of the CRISPR loci. This system can be classified in a number of types and subtypes that differ widely in their gene composition and mode of action. This thesis describes the biochemical characteristics of CRISPR-mediated defense in the crenarchaeon Sulfolobus solfataricus. The process of CRISPR loci transcription and their subsequent maturation into small guide crRNA units by the processing endonuclease of the system (Cas6) is investigated. After this step, different pathways and effector proteins are involved in the recognition and silencing of DNA or RNA exogenous nucleic acids. This thesis reports the identification and purification of a native multiprotein complex from S. solfataricus P2, the Cmr complex, a homologue of which has been found to recognise and cleave RNA targets in P. furiosus. The recognition and silencing of DNA targets in E. coli has been shown to involve a multiprotein complex termed CASCADE as well as Cas3, a putative helicase-HD nuclease. S. solfataricus encodes orthologues for the core proteins of this complex, and the formation and function of an archaeal CASCADE is investigated in this thesis.

Synonymous codon usage bias has been extensively studied in Bacteria and Eukaryotes and yet there has been little investigation in the third domain of life, the Archaea. In this thesis I therefore examine the coding sequences of nearly 70 species of Archaea to explore patterns of codon bias. Heterogeneity in codon usage among genes was initially explored for a single species, Methanococcus maripaludis, where patterns were explained by a single major trend associated with expression level and attributed to natural selection. Unlike the bacterium Escherichia coli, selection was largely restricted to two-fold degenerate sites. Analyses of patterns of codon usage bias within genomes were extended to the other species of Archaea, where variation was more commonly explained by heterogeneity in G+C content and asymmetric base composition. By comparison with bacterial genomes, far fewer trends were found to be associated with expression level, implying a reduced prevalence of translational selection among Archaea. The strength of selected codon usage bias (S) was estimated for 67 species of Archaea, and revealed that natural selection has had less impact in shaping patterns of codon usage across Archaea than across many species of Bacteria. Variation in S was explained by the combined effects of growth rate and optimal growth temperature, with species growing at high temperatures exhibiting weaker than expected selection given growth rate. Such a relationship is expected if temperature kinetically modulates growth rate via its impact upon translation elongation, since rapid elongation rates at high temperatures reduce the selective benefit of optimal codon usage for the efficiency of translation. Consistent with this, growth temperature is negatively correlated with minimal generation time, and numbers of rRNA operons and tRNA genes are reduced at high growth temperatures. The large fraction of thermophilic Archaea relative to Bacteria account for the lower values of S observed. Two major trends were found to describe variation in codon usage among archaeal genomes; the first was attributed to GC3s and the second was associated with arginine codon usage and was linked both with growth temperature and the genome-wide excess of G over C content. The latter is unlikely to reflect thermophilic adaptation since the codon primarily underlying the trend appears to be selectively disfavoured. No correlations were observed with genome wide GC3s and optimal growth temperature and neither was GC3s associated with aerobiosis. The identities of optimal codons were explored and found to be invariant across U and C-ending two-fold degenerate amino acid groups. The identity of optimal codons and anticodons across four and six-fold degenerate amino acid groups was found to vary with mutational bias. As was first observed in M. maripaludis, selected codon usage bias was consistently greater across two-fold relative to four-fold degenerate amino acid groups across Archaea. This broad pattern could reflect ancestral patterns of optimal codon divergence, prevalent among four-fold but not two-fold degenerate amino acid groups. Consistent with this, the strength of selected codon usage bias was found to be reduced following the divergence of optimal codons, and implies that optimal codon divergence typically proceeds following the relaxation of selection. Finally, a method was developed to partition the strength of selection (S) into separate components reflecting selection for translational efficiency (Seff) and selection for translational accuracy (Sacc) by comparing the codon usage across conserved and nonconserved amino acid residues. While estimates of Sacc are somewhat sensitive to the designation of conserved sites, a general pattern emerged whereby accuracy-selected codon usage bias was consistently strongest across a subset of the most highly conserved sites. Several estimates of Sacc were consistently higher than the 95% range of null values regardless of the dataset, providing evidence for accuracy-selected codon usage bias in these species.

Microbial communities play an essential role in carrying out the biogeochemical cycles that sustain life on Earth, yet we know very little about their ecology. One question of particular interest is how environmental conditions shape microbial community structure (i.e., the types of organisms found in the community and their relative abundance), and whether such changes in structure are related to biogeochemical function. It is the aim of this dissertation to address this question via the examination of carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) cycling in wetland ecosystems, which due to their diverse hydrology have a profound influence on biogeochemical cycles. With respect to N cycling, the community structure of denitrification- and dissimilatory nitrate reduction to ammonium (DNRA)-capable organisms was evaluated in response to changes in resource availability, specifically organic matter (OM) and nitrate (NO3-), using an in situ field manipulation. Interactive regulation of microbial community composition was exhibited in both groups, likely due to variation in C substrate preferences and NO3- utilization efficiency. Subsequent experimentation considering only denitrification revealed that resource regulation of activity rates was mediated through changes in denitrifier community composition. The resource regulation of wetland C cycling also was evaluated using an in situ OM manipulation. OM characteristics (e.g., degree of decomposition) affected microbial extracellular enzyme activity (EEA) and changed the community structure of bacteria, archaea, and methanogens. These changes were linked with carbon dioxide and methane production via a conceptual model diagramming the importance of microbial community structure and EEA in greenhouse gas production. The investigation of C cycling in wetlands was extended to consider an important global change threat: saltwater intrusion into freshwater tidal wetlands. Bacterial community structure and EEA were examined along a natural salinity gradient. Salinity was strongly associated with bacterial community structure and positively correlated with EEA. These results suggested that salinity-induced increases in decomposition were responsible for reduced soil OM content in more saline wetlands. This work demonstrates that microbial communities in wetlands are structured by environmental conditions including resource availability and salinity. Further, the research provides evidence that environmental regulation of important biogeochemical processes in wetlands (e.g., methanogensis, denitrification, etc.) is mediated through changes in microbial community structure.

Thesis advisor: Mary F. Roberts / Crystallization studies in presence of organic osmolytes were conducted to better understand the specific mechanism of compatible solute binding to the inositol monophosphatase of Archaeoglobus fulgidus. The synthesis of a-diglycerol phosphate, one of the natural osmolytes of A. fulgidus, was also completed for kinetic testing of its I-1-Pase thermoprotective properties and for crystallization trials. / Thesis (MS) — Boston College, 2011. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Chemistry.

D.L. A 454-2007