ArticleNature microbiology2020
Verrucomicrobia use hundreds of enzymes to digest the algal polysaccharide fucoidan.
Article in Nature microbiology, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 150 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
150 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 323 citations in OpenAlex.
- A systematic review of marine macroalgal degradation: Toward a better understanding of macroalgal carbon sequestration potential.Journal of phycology · 2025Pooled it
- Fucoidans: a new frontier in brown seaweed research and biotechnology.Cell surface (Amsterdam, Netherlands) · 2026Review
- Synergistic degradation of fucoidans in the ocean.Nature · 2026Article
- Conversion of minimally processed Sargassum to lipids with the yeast Rhodosporidium toruloides.Biotechnology letters · 2026Article
- Article
- Enhancing sheep rumen health with Przewalskia tangutica: boosting fermentation and microbial diversity in saline-alkali sown pastures.Animal microbiome · 2026Article
- Plant extracts to enhancing intestinal barrier function in fattening lambs: review.Animal bioscience · 2026Article
- Predicting beef diet nutritional composition and intake from rumen metagenomic profiles.Animal nutrition (Zhongguo xu mu shou yi xue hui) · 2026Article
- Metagenomic insight into the diversity and biogeochemical functions of microbial communities in the maar tropical Lake Atexcac.Microbiology (Reading, England) · 2026Article
- Plasmid-Encoded Nitrogen and Carbon Pathways Enhance Metabolic Flexibility of Multidrug-Resistant Bacteria from Municipal Wastewater.Microorganisms · 2026Article
- Rafts of change: microbial and functional dynamics in simulatedApplied and environmental microbiology · 2026Article
- Resilience and response of marine microbes to the future ocean and a marine heatwave - insights from a mesocosm experiment.FEMS microbiology ecology · 2026Article
- Differences in Prokaryotic Community Composition Between Two Climatically Contrasting Years in an Arctic Fjord Ecosystem.Environmental microbiology reports · 2026Article
- Article
- Host-driven evolution shapes the polysaccharide utilization profiles of alga-associated Flavobacteriaceae.Microbiome · 2026Article
- Genetic mechanisms for estuarine carbohydrate degradation and linked transcriptional activity.Applied and environmental microbiology · 2026Article
- Phosphate deprivation restricts bacterial degradation of the marine polysaccharide fucoidan.Nature microbiology · 2026Article
- Phosphate availability stabilizes fucoidan produced by marine microalgae.Nature microbiology · 2026Article
- Multimodular flavobacterial enzymes specialized in coordinated decomposition of cellulose and alginate in brown algal cell walls.The ISME journal · 2026Article
- Conserved glycan-utilization strategies shape Akkermansiaceae success across aquatic and gut ecosystems.The ISME journal · 2026Article
90 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
- Commented on by
Authors and funding
11 authors at 6 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Brown algae are important players in the global carbon cycle by fixing carbon dioxide into 1 Gt of biomass annually, yet the fate of fucoidan-their major cell wall polysaccharide-remains poorly understood. Microbial degradation of fucoidans is slower than that of other polysaccharides, suggesting that fucoidans are more recalcitrant and may sequester carbon in the ocean. This may be due to the complex, branched and highly sulfated structure of fucoidans, which also varies among species of brown algae. Here, we show that 'Lentimonas' sp. CC4, belonging to the Verrucomicrobia, acquired a remarkably complex machinery for the degradation of six different fucoidans. The strain accumulated 284 putative fucoidanases, including glycoside hydrolases, sulfatases and carbohydrate esterases, which are primarily located on a 0.89-megabase pair plasmid. Proteomics reveals that these enzymes assemble into substrate-specific pathways requiring about 100 enzymes per fucoidan from different species of brown algae. These enzymes depolymerize fucoidan into fucose, which is metabolized in a proteome-costly bacterial microcompartment that spatially constrains the metabolism of the toxic intermediate lactaldehyde. Marine metagenomes and microbial genomes show that Verrucomicrobia including 'Lentimonas' are abundant and highly specialized degraders of fucoidans and other complex polysaccharides. Overall, the complexity of the pathways underscores why fucoidans are probably recalcitrant and more slowly degraded, since only highly specialized organisms can effectively degrade them in the ocean.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.