Project description
A new idea to solve microbial mysteries
Microorganisms have shaped Earth’s biogeochemistry over billions of years. However, anaerobic archaea, crucial for carbon cycling, remain largely mysterious due to their uncultured nature. This ‘microbial dark matter’ harbours hidden enzymatic chemistry inaccessible through conventional methods. In this context, the ERC-funded EnLightEn project aims to decode these processes. By studying non-isolated archaea in their native habitats, the project seeks to shed light on the molecular intricacies of carbon processing. Through biochemical investigations and advanced techniques, such as chromatography and crystallisation, EnLightEn promises to illuminate the world of microbial metabolism, offering unprecedented insights into Earth’s ecosystems. The project is a step towards understanding the secrets of microbial dark matter and its impact on our planet.
Objective
"Microorganisms have shaped the Earth's biogeochemistry for almost 4 billion years. Among them, anaerobic archaea dominate the carbon one-unit cycle, nourish ecosystems, and orchestrate the final step of organic matter degradation. They remain mainly uncharacterised and uncultured while harbouring a universe of concealed enzymatic chemistry, which cannot be approached via classic omics. EnLightEn will study these non-isolated archaea as part of the ""microbial dark matter"" by exploiting native biomass rather than artificial systems. The overall carbon-processing catabolic landscape will be pictured through an anaerobic pipeline, simultaneously investigating multiple enzymes bound to physiological partners and equipped with native (metallo)cofactors. This approach proved its success by deciphering the first and last steps of the ethane-oxidation process from an anaerobic microbial enrichment breaking the accepted metabolic model of archaeal alkanotrophy.
EnLightEn will develop into three branches. (i) We will pioneer the biochemical investigations of enzymes from methanotrophic archaea enrichments. (ii) The native catabolic machinery from acetate-degrading methanogens, the prime methane producers in the world, will be isolated from mesocosms. (iii) As the most challenging project, we will study marine environmental enzymes from sediments and microbial mats conducting anaerobic methanotrophy and methanogenesis.
Catabolic enzymes are naturally in high abundance in these multiple subspecies communities. Single protein populations will be sorted out by chromatography and ultimately by crystallisation and studied by a suite of biophysical, biochemical and structural technics, as we recently did for a methane-generating enzyme isolated from a wastewater treatment plant.
EnLightEn will open a field to characterise the functional dark matter, which can be further applied to other metabolisms and offer an unprecedented view of the molecular tricks used by the microbial world."
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences biological sciences ecology ecosystems
- natural sciences chemical sciences organic chemistry aliphatic compounds
- natural sciences biological sciences microbiology
- natural sciences biological sciences biochemistry biomolecules proteins enzymes
- natural sciences earth and related environmental sciences geochemistry biogeochemistry
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
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Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
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Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2023-COG
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75015 Paris
France
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