Link to bioRxiv paper: http://biorxiv.org/cgi/content/short/2020.08.16.252635v1?rss=1 Authors: Mo, S., Li, J., Li, B., Yu, R., Nie, S., Zhang, Z., Kashif, M., He, S., Liao, J., Jiang, Q., Shen, P., Yan, B., Jiang, C. Abstract: Motivation Sulfate reduction is an important process in the sulfur cycle. However, the relationship between this process and the genotype of microorganisms involved in subtropical mangrove ecosystems is poorly understood. Genotyping can identify and is crucial for sulfate reduction in mangrove ecosystems with high sulfur concentrations. A professional and efficient gene integration database of sulfur metabolism has not been established yet. Results This work aimed to evaluate sulfate reduction by microorganisms in mangroves by using a sulfur metabolism gene integrative database (SMDB) that was mainly constructed to analyze the sulfur cycle (sub) gene families quickly and accurately. The database achieved high coverage, fast retrieval, and low false positives. Relative enrichment of sulfate adenylyltransferase indicated that environmental factors select for a partial dissimilatory sulfate reduction process. Furthermore, the sulfate reduction community compensates by producing certain sulfate-reduction genes in response to high-sulfur environments in mangrove sediments. Taxonomic assignment of dissimilatory sulfate-reduction genes revealed that Crenarchaeota and Halobacterota are completely responsible for this process. Sulfite reductase can help the community cope with the toxic sulfite produced by these Archaea phyla. Collectively, these findings suggested that Halobacterota and Crenarchaeota play essential roles in dissimilatory sulfate reduction. Availability and implementation SMDB is freely available under http://smdb.gxu.edu.cn/ and https://github.com/taylor19891213/sulfur-metabolism-gene-database. Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online. Copy rights belong to original authors. Visit the link for more info