Deciphering a Marine Bone-Degrading Microbiome Reveals a Complex Community Effort
Erik Borchert, Antonio García‐Moyano, Sergio Sánchez-Carrillo, Thomas G. Dahlgren, Beate M. Slaby, Gro Elin Kjæreng Bjerga, Manuel Ferrer, Sören Franzenburg, Ute Hentschel
Abstract
Bones are an underexploited, yet potentially profitable feedstock for biotechnological advances and value chains, due to the sheer amounts of residues produced by the modern meat and poultry processing industry. In this metagenomic study, we decipher the microbial pathways and enzymes that we postulate to be involved in bone degradation in the marine environment. We here demonstrate the interplay between different bacterial community members, each supplying different enzymatic functions with the potential to cover an array of reactions relating to the degradation of bone matrix components. We identify and describe a novel gene cluster for collagen utilization, which is a key function in this unique environment. We propose that the interplay between the different microbial taxa is necessary to achieve the complex task of bone degradation in the marine environment.