ArticleThe ISME journal2019
Atmospheric carbon monoxide oxidation is a widespread mechanism supporting microbial survival.
Article in The ISME journal, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 117 papers.
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Who cites it
117 citing papers in PubMed.
- Soil proteogenomics uncover microbial strategies for soil depth-specific carbon cycling under whole-soil warming conditions.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Genomic adaptations of novel halotolerant bacteria from extreme North Greenland.FEMS microbiology ecology · 2026Article
- Thermodynamic Evaluation of Dual Substrate Growth.Biotechnology and bioengineering · 2026Article
- Uncovering transcriptional processes in microbial communities adapted to differing saline conditions in salt-weathered historic buildings.Microbiome · 2026Article
- Genomic Survey of Carbon Monoxide Dehydrogenases Reveals Their Widespread Distribution in Marine Habitats.Environmental microbiology reports · 2026Article
- Article
- Vertical distribution and metabolic diversity of autotrophic microbes in the deep sediment of the challenger deep.Environmental microbiome · 2026Article
- Atmospheric hydrogen consumption is regulated by glycerol-mediated catabolite repression in mycobacteria.mSystems · 2026Article
- Carbon monoxide metabolism in freshwater anaerobic methanotrophic archaea.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Carbon monoxide oxidation expands the known metabolic capacity in anaerobic methanotrophic consortia.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Carbon monoxide dehydrogenase-encoding microorganisms in volcanic astrobiological analogues: an enzyme system to investigate the evolution of life.FEMS microbiology ecology · 2026Review
- Airborne Bacterial Communities: Diversity, Survival Strategies and Functional Roles in the Atmosphere.Environmental microbiology reports · 2026Review
- Metabolic transitions along a moisture gradient in a poly-extreme high-altitude desert ecosystem within the Atacama Desert.Environmental microbiome · 2026Article
- Carbon monoxide-driven proton respiration enables facultative anaerobes to survive electron acceptor limitation.The ISME journal · 2026Article
- Neurobiophilia.Brain sciences · 2026Review
- Getting a grip on StAR-related lipid-transfer (START) domain proteins in bacteria.FEMS microbiology reviews · 2026Review
- Search for the role of a Huc-type [NiFe]-hydrogenase of the soil thermophileFrontiers in microbiology · 2026Article
- Contrasting associations between microbiota respiratory strategies and seafloor macrofauna.ISME communications · 2026Article
- Bipolar investigation of near-surface glacial ice reveals an active microbial ecosystem driven by photosynthesis and chemolithoautotrophy.ISME communications · 2026Article
- Metabolically flexible microorganisms rapidly establish glacial foreland ecosystems.Nature communications · 2025Article
57 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Carbon monoxide (CO) is a ubiquitous atmospheric trace gas produced by natural and anthropogenic sources. Some aerobic bacteria can oxidize atmospheric CO and, collectively, they account for the net loss of ~250 teragrams of CO from the atmosphere each year. However, the physiological role, genetic basis, and ecological distribution of this process remain incompletely resolved. In this work, we addressed these knowledge gaps through culture-based and culture-independent work. We confirmed through shotgun proteomic and transcriptional analysis that the genetically tractable aerobic soil actinobacterium Mycobacterium smegmatis upregulates expression of a form I molydenum-copper carbon monoxide dehydrogenase by 50-fold when exhausted for organic carbon substrates. Whole-cell biochemical assays in wild-type and mutant backgrounds confirmed that this organism aerobically respires CO, including at sub-atmospheric concentrations, using the enzyme. Contrary to current paradigms on CO oxidation, the enzyme did not support chemolithoautotrophic growth and was dispensable for CO detoxification. However, it significantly enhanced long-term survival, suggesting that atmospheric CO serves a supplemental energy source during organic carbon starvation. Phylogenetic analysis indicated that atmospheric CO oxidation is widespread and an ancestral trait of CO dehydrogenases. Homologous enzymes are encoded by 685 sequenced species of bacteria and archaea, including from seven dominant soil phyla, and we confirmed genes encoding this enzyme are abundant and expressed in terrestrial and marine environments. On this basis, we propose a new survival-centric model for the evolution of aerobic CO oxidation and conclude that, like atmospheric H
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