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PROFILE PROFILE Profile of Edward DeLong Paul Gabrielsen enzymes among four genera of marine bac- Science Writer teria and infer evolutionary relationships. “That’s where the inkling started that I Every year, gray whales travel up and down Finding Himself could combine my interests in biology and my passion for the ocean,” DeLong says. “I the Pacific coast, migrating between the Born in 1958, the third of six children, hadn’t even realized up until that point that Bering Sea and Baja California. In the mid- DeLong grew up in Sonoma, California on an research was an option.” The findings were 1970s, Northern California amateur skin “overdose of Jacques Cousteau,” he says. As diver Edward DeLong tried to swim out to published in the Archives of Microbiology a teenager, he encountered sea lions and sea with DeLong as first author (1). meet them. With his sights set on some of otters on skin diving expeditions with friends, ’ the ocean s largest creatures, DeLong was and attempted to reach gray whales. “We Setting His Compass oblivious to the microecosystem swirling never actually met them face to face,” he says. DeLong arrived at the Scripps Institution of around him in the cool water. Instead, his DeLong’s father, a high school English Oceanography in 1982 to begin graduate fascination for the vast and mysterious ocean teacher, encouraged his children in academ- school. Under biophysicist Art Yayanos, impelled him to reach for the huge, shadowy ics, but 18-year-old DeLong did not feel DeLong studied pressure-adapted micro- whales in the distance. ready for college. He went to Alaska for organisms and discovered polyunsaturated But the unseen marine world—the micro- a year to “find himself,” he says. But the fatty acids in deep-sea bacteria that were organisms that were then largely unknown to produced as antifreeze to counteract the — Alaskan job market in 1977, shortly after DeLong and to science became the ultimate effects of the cold, high-pressure envi- completion of the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, was object of his fascination. Today, DeLong is ronment of the deep ocean (2). Further- flooded with other young men eager for a marine microbiologist at the Massachusetts more, the discovery pointed to a new work. After waiting tables and clerking at a Institute of Technology and a member of the source of these essential nutrients for deep- National Academy of Sciences. Over the convenience store, DeLong returned to Cal- sea fish and invertebrates (3). DeLong’s years, he has probed genetic clues to uncover ifornia to enroll in school. biochemical study had produced a new long-held secrets of the sea, including the At the University of California, Davis ecological hypothesis. composition and function of microbial com- DeLong majored in bacteriology, hoping to “Sometimes you end up hitting a target munities from Hawaii to Antarctica. DeLong apply his fascination with biology in a career you didn’t know you were shooting at,” has learned that studying a reservoir of life as as a medical technologist. However, an un- DeLong says. large and diverse as the ocean can lead to dergraduate research experience with marine Nearing graduation in 1986, DeLong read unexpected discoveries. “We’re continually bacterial taxonomist Paul Baumann changed aPNASstudy(4)authoredbyNormanPace being surprised,” he says. his path. The project aimed to compare and colleagues, then at Indiana University in Bloomington, about a new approach to microbiology. In 1977, evolutionary biologist Carl Woese had defined a kingdom of microorganisms, called archaea, in a study using 16S ribosomal RNA as a phylogenetic tool (5). Pace had developed methods to rapidly sequence ribosomal RNAs, allowing for genetic profiling of entire microbial pop- ulations. Before this effort, microbiologists could study only what they could grow in the laboratory. “Wehadarealgapinourun- derstanding,” DeLong says. Pace’s work opened up a new method of cultivation- independent microbiology, which later de- veloped into community genome sequencing, also called “metagenomics.” DeLong wanted to be a part of the field. DeLong began his postdoctoral fellowship with Pace in 1986, and applied his experi- ence with molecular biology to ribosomal This is a Profile of a recently elected member of the National Academy of Sciences to accompany the member’s Inaugural Article Edward DeLong. Photo by L. Barry Hetherington. on page 16420 in issue 38 of volume 107. www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1323425111 PNAS Early Edition | 1of3 Downloaded by guest on September 27, 2021 been able to define a unique question,” he says. “I felt like the compass has been set.” Seeking to teach, DeLong moved to the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1992. Inspired by microbial samples from Antarctica, composed of up to 30% archaea, he traveled to Antarctica to study the unusual microorganisms in a cold-water environ- ment. But his research vessel, the Nor- wegian icebreaker Polar Duke, became trapped in ice en route. DeLong and his colleagues were stuck. “IliketotellpeoplethatIbiked500miles to Antarctica,” DeLong says, referring to the timehespentonanexercisebikewhilethe ship was beset by ice. Others passed the time producing a daily newspaper, the “Dukie News,” to which DeLong contributed an anonymous advice column. After 10 days, the Polar Duke broke free of the ice. DeLong’s subsequent research revealed that the planktonic archaea Cren- archaeota (now called Thaumarchaeota) accounted for up to 20% of recoverable ribosomal RNA in the −2 °C Antarctic waters, and that archaea and bacteria en- gage in a seasonal tug-of-war, with bacteria outnumbering archaea in the summer and archaea gaining the upper hand during winter (8). A Secret Source of Energy DeLong moved to the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) in 1997. He began developing high-throughput cloning and sequencing methods, borrowed from the Human Genome Project, to explore the genetics and physiology of marine microbes. DeLong planned to collect large chromosomal segments from bacterio- Edward DeLong conducting fieldwork on skis in Antarctica in 1995. Photo by Alison Murray. plankton, identify their origins from ri- bosomal RNA, and determine what genes were associated with individual species. phylogeny. With his colleagues, DeLong Award to study the microorganisms clinging MBARI president Chris Scholin recalls developed fluorescent oligonucleotide ribo- to sinking bits of detritus, often called “ma- DeLong reassuring him that these efforts somal RNA probes that could be tailored to rine snow.” DeLong set out to characterize would pay off. “There was clearly a solid attach only to cells of specific microbial taxa the distinction between microbial pop- line of reasoning behind the work, but it “ (6). Basically, you could color-code and ulations on these particles and those in the wasn’t clear from the outset what [lay] — count different microbial cell types under free water column using metagenomics. He ahead as if setting sail to find lands un- ” ” the microscope, DeLong says. planned to explore the hypothesis that known, Scholin says. The payoff did not In 1989, DeLong accepted a position methanogenic archaea lived in the anaero- take long to materialize. as an assistant scientist at Woods Hole “The second clone we sequenced,” bic interior of marine snow. Oceanographic Institution. For the first DeLong says, “had a rhodopsin gene, which “I got exactly the opposite result,” he says. year, he worked alone in the laboratory, had never been seen in bacteria before.” DeLong found little evidence of archaea running experiments, washing laboratory Rhodopsins are light-sensitive proteins that dishes, and writing grant proposals. Feeling in detritus particles, but instead found change their conformation when struck by insecure at the prospect of finding all of the surrounding ocean to be teeming with a photon. The change causes protons to be his own funding, DeLong strove to define them (7). Archaea, he discovered, were pumped out of a cell, setting in motion an a unique research program and set his not limited to deep-sea vents and other energy-generating system similar to that in research compass. extreme environments. mitochondria. Previously, bacteriorhodop- After nearly a year, DeLong secured an DeLong’s Young Investigator award gave sin in halophilic archaea was the only pro- Office of Naval Research Young Investigator him confidence and direction. “IfeltlikeI’d ton-pumping rhodopsin known. But the 2of3 | www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1323425111 Gabrielsen Downloaded by guest on September 27, 2021 PROFILE proteorhodopsin genes discovered by DeLong and other complex organic molecules, repre- accurately define how the natural world and postdoctoral researcher Oded Béjà im- sents a vast reservoir of carbon in the ocean, around us works, and how human activities plied that rhodopsins were more wide- DeLongsays.WithDanRepeta,amarine are affecting it.” spread and could support phototrophy chemist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Outside the laboratory, DeLong spends throughout surface ocean waters, a process Institution, DeLong and colleagues used most of his free time with his 17-year-old they deemed “globally significant” in their metagenomics to determine which genes son. Parenting, DeLong says, has informed paper published in Nature in 2001 (9). microbes use to consume long-chain poly- his interaction with graduate students, and “That substantially changes our notion of saccharides introduced into seawater sam- vice versa. He has learned to

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