Microbial regulatory mechanisms involved in groundwater arsenic enrichment: Synergistic interactions between key species and genes in C-N-S metabolism

Abstract

Microbially mediated carbon (C), nitrogen (N), and sulfur (S) metabolism are core biogeochemical drivers affecting arsenic (As) mobilization and transformation that regulate the formation of high-arsenic groundwater globally. This study determined the microbial molecular mechanisms driving As mobility via coupled C-N-S cycles in the Kuitun River Basin (Xinjiang, China). Metagenomic and geochemical analyses of high-As (HA; >10 μg/L, n = 5) and low-As (LA; ≤10 μg/L, n = 6) samples revealed significant microbial community divergence (analysis of similarities R = 0.67, P = 0.003). Key differential genera included HA-enriched Candidatus Kuenenia and Sulfuritalea as well as the LA-enriched Sphingobium and Novosphingobium. Key functional genes exhibited contrasting As correlations, with negative correlations (katE, cynT, ncd2, ssuABC, and dmdC) in LA-dominant Rhodopseudomonas/Hydrogenophaga/Acinetobacter promoting As³⁺ oxidation, competitive inhibition of As⁵⁺ reduction, and As₂S₃ precipitation; positive correlations (ACO, korA, hao, psrA) in HA-associated Candidatus Kuenenia and Thiobacillus enhanced As⁵⁺ reduction, Fe/Mn oxide dissolution, and thioarsenate formation. Rhodopseudomonas in unconfined aquifers demonstrated a synergistic C-N-S network (katE-ncd2-ssuABC) for efficient As immobilization. These findings enhance the understanding of microbially driven As biogeochemical cycles and provide a theoretical foundation for developing in situ remediation technologies based on microbial metabolic regulation.

Keywords

High-arsenic groundwater / C-N-S metabolism / Microorganisms / Functional genes

Data availability

The datasets generated and analyzed during the current study are available in the NCBI Sequence Read Archive repository under BioProject ID PRJNA1145651. These data will become publicly accessible on August 1, 2028.

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Jingru Yang: Writing - original draft, Formal analysis, Data curation. Qiao Li: Writing - review & editing, Funding acquisition, Conceptualization. Ting Chen: Methodology, Investigation. Hon-gfei Tao: Supervision, Software, Resources. Youwei Jiang: Visual-ization, Validation.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Special Project of Key Research and Development Program of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (2024B03029-2), Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Youth Science Project (2022D01B86), National Natural Science Foundation of China (41762018), Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Graduate Student Innovation Program Project (XJ2025G113) and Xinjiang Water Conservancy Project Safety and Water Disaster Prevention Key Laboratory Research Project (ZDSYS-YJS-2024-05).

Appendix A. Supplementa ry data

Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gsf.2025.102132.

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