Desulfosporosinus is a genus within bacillota-b that recurs among the deep-clay subsurface lineages analysed in this corpus, alongside BRH-c4a and BRH-c8a; these lineages are described as dominating cultured clay isolates 1,2.
Aliases and identifiers: the source reports use only the genus name Desulfosporosinus, and no NCBI taxid or other external identifier is given in the assigned evidence 3,1,2.
Occurrence in deep-clay cohorts
In the bacillota_b_subsurface_accessory project, the anchor_deep_clay cohort of 10 genomes drew on Mont Terri Opalinus borehole 5 (Desulfosporosinus, BRH-c8a×2, BRH-c4a, +1 metagenomic Desulfosporosinus), Mont Terri rock-porewater MAGs (metagenome-assembled genomes) 3, and Russian Beyelii Yar borehole 2 (Ca. Desulforudis audaxviator and Ch130 Thermacetogeniaceae); see mont-terri and beyelii yar 3.
In the clay_confined_subsurface project, the anchor_deep genera include exactly the lineages Bagnoud (2016) identified as recurrent across 7 Mont Terri boreholes: Desulfosporosinus (×2), BRH-c8a (Peptococcaceae c8a in Bagnoud’s nomenclature; ×2), BRH-c4a (Desulfotomaculales), Lutibacter and BRH-c54 (Bacteroidota), Roseovarius (Rhodobacterales), and Stenotrophomonas (the bentonite isolate) 1.
The two projects report the Desulfosporosinus content of their deep anchor cohorts differently: clay_confined_subsurface lists Desulfosporosinus (×2), whereas bacillota_b_subsurface_accessory states that its anchor cohort includes 3 Desulfosporosinus genomes; the cohorts are defined separately in each project, and the reports do not reconcile the counts 1,3.
Sulfate reduction and hydrogen metabolism
Five of nine anchor_deep genomes in clay_confined_subsurface carry the dissimilatory sulfate reduction module (Sat, AprAB, DsrAB) and seven carry group 1 [NiFe]-hydrogenase markers, including direct hits on the BRH-c8a and Desulfosporosinus lineages; see dissimilatory-sulfate-reduction and nife-hydrogenase 1.
The phylum-background caveat applies to wood-ljungdahl-pathway and group 1 [NiFe]-hydrogenase, not to sulfate reduction: the Bacillota_B phylum, which contains Desulfosporosinus, BRH-c4a and BRH-c8a, carries Wood-Ljungdahl plus group 1 [NiFe]-hydrogenase at high background rates even in soil samples (Bacillota_B baseline mean toolkit 1.65). Within-Bacillota_B comparisons find Wood-Ljungdahl (5/5 vs 15/19, p=0.54) and NiFe-hydrogenase (5/5 vs 14/19, p=0.54) not enriched in deep-clay isolates beyond their phylum congeners, whereas sulfate reduction (5/5 vs 4/19, p_BH=0.04, Benjamini–Hochberg-adjusted) survives this phylogenetic control 2.
Sporulation
The bacillota_b_subsurface_accessory project reports that its H1 sporulation-revival hits replicate Vandieken 2017 (PMID 28646634), which characterized Baltic Sea subsurface Desulfosporosinus species as spore-forming with broad respiratory versatility; 3 Desulfosporosinus genomes in the anchor cohort contributed to the sporulation-OG (orthologous group) signal. This is genomic (gene-content) evidence that agrees with the published characterization; the project does not report direct phenotypic sporulation assays of these genomes 3.
Caveats
The reported 5/5 Bacillota_B sulfate-reduction enrichment rests on an “n=5 vs 19” comparison that may hide further granularity: Desulfosporosinus, BRH-c8a and BRH-c4a may differ in which non-sulfate-reduction features they carry, so genus-level conclusions for Desulfosporosinus remain untested 1.
Related pages
- subsurface-bacillota-specialization — deep-clay Bacillota_B lineages and their accessory functions 3,1,2
- Subsurface Bacillota_B Specialization — What Distinguishes Deep-Clay Lineages from Soil Congeners? and Self-Sufficiency, Anaerobic Toolkit, and Cultivation Bias in Clay-Confined Cultured Bacterial Genomes — source projects 3,1