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6d ago

New Organelle in Cow Gut Microbes Linked to Methane Burps

The discovery pinpoints a hydrogen source that could guide future methane-cutting research.

Fluorescent microscope images of three ciliate protozoa from the rumen (first stomach) of cattle. The one on the left is egg-shaped and covered in waves of green, yellow and red hairlike cilia. In the center a clear, red goblet-shaped organism is topped by a bright orange shock of cilia. On the right is a green and yellow microbe that resembles an oval Koosh ball with a blue-green oval in the center. The center oval is the nucleus. These organisms have a newly discovered organelle that makes hydrogen and spurs other microbes to produce methane.
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Overview

  • The Science study, published Thursday, identifies an oval “hydrogenobody” inside rumen ciliates that helps drive methane production in cattle and other ruminants.
  • The organelle makes hydrogen that nearby archaea use to form methane, and it sits as single-membrane clusters at the base of the microbes’ cilia.
  • The team built a genomic catalog of about 450 ciliate genomes and logged 65 rumen ciliate species, including 45 that had not been sequenced before, by isolating single cells to avoid contamination.
  • In field data from roughly 100 dairy cows, more ciliates tracked with more methanogens and higher methane output, and high-emitting sheep carried about 100 times more Dasytricha than low emitters on the same diet.
  • Ciliates account for about a quarter of rumen microbes, and experts say the mechanistic insight offers targets for future tests, though past protozoa removal lowered milk and meat yields and proved hard to sustain.