High diversity but limited expression of biosynthetic gene clusters in a peatland microbial community
Abstract
The in situ relevance of biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs) remains poorly understood. We apply meta-omics to characterize BGC diversity and activity along a peatland redox gradient. From seven metagenomes, we recover 9,694 BGCs, spanning diverse taxa, most lacking close relatives in reference databases, indicating extensive novelty. Only 9-27% of this potential is expressed in situ, with Acidobacteriota, despite moderate repertoires, accounting for over half of all BGC transcription. Talented producers with up to 24 clusters are largely silent, and expression is inversely related to BGCs per genome. Acidobacteriota, specialized in complex carbon processing potential express a larger proportion of their BGC repertoires than BGC-rich Pseudomonadota, which had shorter doubling times and lower potential for complex carbon processing. At the genome level, the degree of BGC expression is most strongly coupled to carbohydrate-active enzyme expression, particularly glycoside hydrolases, linking secondary metabolism to active carbon processing in peatland microbes. Thus, although BGCs are widespread, BGC expression in situ is integrated into the carbon-cycling activity of individual taxa rather than a shared physiological state.
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BibTeX
@article{human2026high,
title = {{High diversity but limited expression of biosynthetic gene clusters in a peatland microbial community}},
author = {Zander Rainier Human and Rene Hoover and Clara Chan and Kirsten Küsel and Carl-Eric Wegner},
journal = {Nature Communications},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1038/s41467-026-78121-8},
url = {https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-78121-8},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - High diversity but limited expression of biosynthetic gene clusters in a peatland microbial community
AU - Zander Rainier Human
AU - Rene Hoover
AU - Clara Chan
AU - Kirsten Küsel
AU - Carl-Eric Wegner
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/06
JO - Nature Communications
DO - 10.1038/s41467-026-78121-8
UR - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-78121-8
AB - The in situ relevance of biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs) remains poorly understood. We apply meta-omics to characterize BGC diversity and activity along a peatland redox gradient. From seven metagenomes, we recover 9,694 BGCs, spanning diverse taxa, most lacking close relatives in reference databases, indicating extensive novelty. Only 9-27% of this potential is expressed in situ, with Acidobacteriota, despite moderate repertoires, accounting for over half of all BGC transcription. Talented producers with up to 24 clusters are largely silent, and expression is inversely related to BGCs per genome. Acidobacteriota, specialized in complex carbon processing potential express a larger proportion of their BGC repertoires than BGC-rich Pseudomonadota, which had shorter doubling times and lower potential for complex carbon processing. At the genome level, the degree of BGC expression is most strongly coupled to carbohydrate-active enzyme expression, particularly glycoside hydrolases, linking secondary metabolism to active carbon processing in peatland microbes. Thus, although BGCs are widespread, BGC expression in situ is integrated into the carbon-cycling activity of individual taxa rather than a shared physiological state.
SN - 2041-1723
ER -