Introduction to the Lecture

Methane is not only the second greenhouse gas but also renewable energy. Archaea methanogens, the only organism that produces a large amount of methane, is strictly anaerobic, only using monocarbide and dicarbide to produce methane. There were three traditional ways to produce methane: reduction of CO2 by H2, acetic acid pyrolysis, and methane production by methyl. Later, methoxyaromatic compounds and long-chain alkanes were found to produce methane. Recently, we have proved that Marseilles methanogenes cooperate with bacteria to demethylate dimethyl arsenic to produce methane, and by this way we have alleviated rice straighthead disease. The electron-driven methane production pathway of methyl, including dimethyl arsenic, has been found, which may exist widely in the environment.

Zoige low-temperature wetland is the center of methane emission on the Tibetan Plateau. We have found that methanol methane production is an active methane emission pathway at low temperature, and isolated cold-tolerant methanogenic archaea. Molecular biology studies have proved that mRNA processing is a molecular regulation mechanism that methanol-methane pathway is active at low temperature and ribosomal mRNA is translated efficiently, and at the same time, the traditional cognition that prokaryotic mRNA is not processed is revised. It has been discovered that TRAM, the first archaea cold shock protein, assists archaea to resist low temperature through RNA chaperone function; that the first archaea global transcription termination factor-aCPSF1 and its archaea use a similar but simple transcription termination mechanism in eukaryotes; and that archaea methanogena regulates the nonstoichiometric expression of protein complexes such as RNA polymerase subunits through the regulation mechanism of transcription termination within operon. The above findings indicate that although the metabolic mode of archaea methanogenes is simple, it has a flexible regulation mechanism to adapt to the environment. Therefore, we have constructed the CRISPR gene editing system and gene component library of archaea methanogenes, laying a foundation for the research and application of archaea synthetic biology.

Profile of the Speaker

Dr. Dong Xiuzhu is a researcher and doctoral supervisor of the Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

She graduated from Beijing Agricultural University (currently China Agricultural University), majoring in microbiology in January 1982, and obtained a master’s degree in microbiology from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1984. From 1985 to September 1989, she was engaged in the study of bacterial classification in the Institute of Microbiology. From September 1989 to December 1994, she studied in the doctoral program of the Department of Microbiology, Wageningen University, the Netherlands. From 1995 to August 1996, she did postdoctoral research at the University of Alabama (Birmingham). Since September 1996, she has been engaged in the research on the physiology and environmental adaptation mechanism of anaerobic bacteria and archaea in the Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

In 2000, she won the National Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars, and in 2004, she was selected into the “Hundred Talents Program” of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. From 2011 to 2018, she served as Deputy Director of the Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. From 2008 to 2017, she served as Director of the State Key Laboratory of Early Development of Microbial Resources. From 2011 to 2021, she served as Secretary-General of the Chinese Society for Microbiology. From 2011 to 2017, she served as a member of the 13th Executive Committee of the World Federation for Culture Collections (WFCC), and is currently a member of the ICSP Subcommittee on the taxonomy of methodological archaea, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Microbiology and Bulletin of Microbiology, and an editorial board member of ISME J, Frontiers: Territorial Microbiology and Biology.In 2004, as the Chief Scientist, she undertook a National 973 Project, “Basic Research on Functional Utilization of Extremely Microorganisms”, and undertook major research plans, key funds and several general fund projects of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, special basic work projects and key research projects of the Ministry of Science and Technology. She has long been engaged in the research on the physiological and environmental adaptation mechanism of anaerobic archaea and bacteria.