Raman-mediated target metagenome technology provides new ideas and methods for the study of in situ function of marine microbiome.

The ocean covers 71% of the Earth's surface and is the largest active carbon reservoir on Earth.
marine microbiological individuals, although small, but the number is very large, fixed carbon dioxide each year up to 2.2 billion tons, accounting for more than half of the earth's annual biological carbon sequestration.
However, the in-situ function of marine microorganisms is often difficult to measure directly and the vast majority have not yet been cultivated.
therefore, how to directly establish the correlation between cell in situ function and genome has always been a key methodological challenge in the industry.
recently, the single cell center of Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Process, Chinese Academy of Sciences, established Raman-guided targeted metagenome technology (Ramanome-Guided Metagenomics; RGM), in which RGM first characterizes and recognizes cell in-situ carbon sequestration through single-cell Raman spectral characterization, and then accurately separates single cells with specific carbon sequestration functions and is coupled with genome sequencing.
because it does not rely on cell culture and does not require fluorescent marker cells, RGM technology provides a new way of thinking and methods for the study of in situ functionality of the marine microbiome, which was recently published in Environmental Microbiology (doi: 10.1111/1462-2920.14268).
single-cell center Jing Xiaoyan, Gu Honglei and Gong Yanhai, among others, first developed the "All-in-One" single-cell Raman sorting and sequencing integration device to improve the quality and flux of Raman sorting cells from complex environmental samples.
they fed their microbiome snare with 13C-NaHCO3 in the form of fresh seawater in the real light layer off the coast of the Yellow Sea in China, and then measured the dynamic characteristics of the 13C peaks on each single-cell Raman map in the seawater Raman group to distinguish the single cell group that was active in the sea water with fixed and metabolically inorganic carbon.
then based on the "All-in-One" single-cell Raman sorting and sequencing device, sorting these in situ carbon sequestration single-cell groups and determining their DNA sequences to reconstruct the genome sketch (Figure 1).
researchers found that in this area, the dominant species of fixed and metabolic inorganic carbon are Synechococcus spp. and Pelagibacter spp., both of which contain carotenoids and integrate 13C from inorganic carbon sources into cells.
match these functions, synechococcus spp.and Pelagibacter spp. have key genes needed for carotenoid synthesis, photoenergy capture, and CO2 fixation.
, And Pelagibacter spp.has a metabolic pathway of beta-carotene, repictoritary synthesis, and carbon sequestration using the rehydration reaction.
, the most abundant bacterial group in the ocean, Pelagibacter spp. Whether the ocean's central plains are fixed carbon dioxide, the industry has been divided.
this work has contributed new evidence to the answer to this important question, and put forward the corresponding molecular mechanism. At the same time
, the establishment of RGM technology has laid a methodological foundation for the exploration of the "Genome-Phenome" correlation mechanism of marine microbiome at various space-time scales.
the above work was completed by Huang Wei of the Department of Engineering of the University of Oxford and Xu Jian of the Single Cell Center of Qingdao Energy Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the Microbiological Group of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
papers: Jing Xiaoyan, Gou Honglei, Gong Yanhai, Su Xiaolu, Xu La, Ji Yuetong, Song Yizhi, Thompson Ian, Xu Jian, Huang Wei.Raman-ramed cell sorting and metagenomic dating siphoning carbon-fixing bacteria in the ocean. Environmental Microbiology, 2018, doi:10.1111/1462-2920.14268.