Soil health is a critical determinant of agricultural productivity and environmental sustainability. Traditional assessment methods often fail to provide a comprehensive understanding of soil microbial communities and their functions. This study addresses this challenge by employing metagenomic techniques to assess the functionality of soil microbiomes in Russian black soil, renowned for its high fertility. We utilized shotgun metagenomic sequencing to analyze soil samples from Western Siberia subjected to different degrees of agro-soil disturbance. We identified functional genes involved in carbon (accA, argG, acsA, mphE, miaB), phosphorus (phoB, ppa, pstB, pnp, phnJ), and nitrogen (queC, amiF, pyrG, guaA, guaB, napA) metabolic pathways and associated with changes in microbial diversity, in general, and higher representation of certain bacterial species—Bradyrhizobium spp. The results demonstrated significant differences in microbial composition and functional potential between tillage treatments. No-Till technology and conventional tillage practices promoted beneficial microbial communities and enhanced soil health compared to long-term fallow soil. This work underscores the potential of metagenomic analysis in providing a comprehensive understanding of soil health, marking a significant advancement in the field.

Soil health is a critical determinant of agricultural productivity and environmental sustainability. Traditional assessment methods often fail to provide a comprehensive understanding of soil microbial communities and their functions. This study addresses this challenge by employing metagenomic techniques to assess the functionality of soil microbiomes in Russian black soil, renowned for its high fertility. We utilized shotgun metagenomic sequencing to analyze soil samples from Western Siberia subjected to different degrees of agro-soil disturbance. We identified functional genes involved in carbon (accA, argG, acsA, mphE, miaB), phosphorus (phoB, ppa, pstB, pnp, phnJ), and nitrogen (queC, amiF, pyrG, guaA, guaB, napA) metabolic pathways and associated with changes in microbial diversity in general and higher representation of certain bacterial species - Bradyrhizobium spp. Results demonstrated significant differences in microbial composition and functional potential between tillage treatments. No-Till technology and conventional tillage practices promoted beneficial microbial communities and enhanced soil health compared to long-term fallow soil. This work underscores the potential of metagenomic analysis in providing a comprehensive understanding of soil health, marking a significant advancement in the field.

In this study, the biocatalytic activity of four steroid-transforming strains isolated from the African frog Xenopus laevis and identified as Streptomyces rochei towards pregnane steroids has been investigated. All the isolated strains facilitated the reduction of the C20-carbonyl group and the structures of the metabolites were confirmed by mass spectrometric (MS) and ¹H NMR spectroscopic analyses. Hydrocortisone and progesterone were poorly transformed by the streptomycete strains, whereas cortexolone (Reichstein’s substance S) was effectively biotransformed, yielding more than 90% of 17α,20β,21α-trihydroxy-4-pregnen-3-one (20β-S). Primarily, 20α-reduction was detected when the microbial isolates were incubated with 17α-hydroxyprogesterone with the yield of 17α,20α-dihydroxy-4-pregnen-3-one (17,20α-P) reaching 70%. The biological activity of 20β-S was evaluated in Danio rerio. The results demonstrated that 20β-S modulated stress- and anxiety-related behavioral responses and activated Pgr-dependent transcriptional pathways in the brain and ovarian tissues. These observations support the potential relevance of the synthesized progestin as a functional regulator in teleost physiology. The findings enhance our understanding of the biodiversity of steroid-transforming actinomycetes inhabiting amphibians and can be successfully employed for the effective microbiological synthesis of biologically active 20-hydroxylated progestins that serve as bioregulators in teleosts.