Arsenic-methylating anaerobic rice paddy soil-derived microbiomes (Raw DNA sequence reads)

To date, little is known about the physiological role, nor the microbial drivers, of arsenic methylation under anoxic conditions. We combine three meta-omics techniques (metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, and metaproteomics) to identify the microorganisms responsible for As methylation in two anoxic soil-derived microbial cultures. Metagenomics results confirm the phylogenetic diversity of microorganisms bearing the gene encoding the arsenite S-adenosylmethionine methyltransferase (ArsM) , while metatranscriptomics and metaproteomics provide complementary evidence that only a small fraction of those organisms actively methylate arsenic.