Marine toxin domoic acid alters nitrogen cycling in sediments

As a red tide algal toxin with intense neurotoxicity distributed worldwide, domoic acid (DA) has attracted increasing concerns. In this work, the integrative analysis of metagenome and metabolome are applied to investigate the impact of DA on nitrogen cycling in coastal sediments. Here we show that DA can act as a stressor to induce the variation of nitrogen (N) cycling by altering the abundance of functional genes and electron supply. Moreover, microecology theory revealed that DA can increase the role of deterministic assembly in microbial dynamic succession, resulting in the shift of niches and, ultimately, the alteration in N cycling. Notably, denitrification and Anammox, the important process for sediment N removal, are markedly limited by DA. Also, variation of N cycling implies the modification in cycles of other associated elements. Overall, DA is capable of ecosystem-level effects, which require further evaluation of its potential cascading effects.