Metagenomic and chemical characterization of soil cobalamin production
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Cobalamin (vitamin B12) is an essential enzyme cofactor for most branches of life. Despite the potential importance of this cofactor for soil microbial communities, the producers and consumers of cobalamin in terrestrial environments are still unknown. Here we provide the first metagenome-based assessment of soil cobalamin-producing bacteria and archaea, quantifying and classifying genes encoding proteins for cobalamin biosynthesis, transport, remodeling, and dependency in 155 soil metagenomes with profile hidden Markov models. We also measured several forms of cobalamin (CN-, Me-, OH-, Ado-B12) and the cobalamin lower ligand (5,6-dimethylbenzimidazole; DMB) in 40 diverse soil samples. Metagenomic analysis revealed that less than 10% of soil bacteria and archaea encode the genetic potential for de novo synthesis of this important enzyme cofactor. Predominant soil cobalamin producers were associated with the Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, Firmicutes, Nitrospirae, and Thaumarchaeota. In contrast, a much larger proportion of abundant soil genera lacked cobalamin synthesis genes and instead were associated with gene sequences encoding cobalamin transport and cobalamin-dependent enzymes. The enrichment of DMB and corresponding DMB synthesis genes, relative to corrin ring synthesis genes, suggests an important role for cobalamin remodelers in terrestrial habitats. Together, our results indicate that microbial cobalamin production and repair serve as keystone functions that are significantly correlated with microbial community size, diversity, and biogeochemistry of terrestrial ecosystems.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".