Genomic Insights into Glacial Microbiomes and Viral on the Tibetan Plateau

Glaciers are essential for understanding environmental changes, particularly on the vulnerable Tibetan Plateau with its vast low-latitude glacier coverage. Understanding glacial microbiomes and viruses is vital for evaluating ecosystem functions and ecological modeling, especially for the Tibetan Plateau's mountain glaciers, which support approximately 20% of the global population.

From sequencing 85 metagenomes and 883 cultured isolates from 21 Tibetan glaciers, we've developed the Tibetan Glacier Genome and Gene (TG2G) catalog, which represent 968 candidate species spanning 30 phyla. The catalog also contains over 25 million non-redundant protein-encoding genes, the utility of which is demonstrated by the exploration of secondary metabolite biosynthetic potentials, virulence factor identification and global glacier metagenome comparison.

Additionally, we present the Supraglacial Virus Genome (SgVG) catalog, expanding the genomic inventory of 10,840 DNA-virus species from 38 mountain and polar glaciers. These viruses, mainly found in snow, ice, meltwater, and cryoconite, have habitat-specificity and low public health risks. They significantly influence supraglacial microbial communities, with cryoconite hosting the highest viral activity.