Anaerobic oxidation of ethane by archaea in different marine environments

Cold seeps and hydrothermal vents deliver large amounts of gaseous alkanes into marine surface sediments. Consortia of archaea and partner bacteria thrive on the oxidation of these alkanes and its coupling to sulfate reduction. Here, we study the genomes of archaea belonging to the GoM-Arc1 clade which have been previously characterized as anaerobic ethane oxidizers. We did single cell sorting from sediment samples of a cold seep of the Gulf of Mexico (GeoB19351-14) and identified seven sorted single cells affiliated to GoM-Arc1. Then, we performed sequencing to obtain genomic libraries used to reconstruct seven single amplified genomes (SAG).