Archaea in extreme high altitude andean lakes

MALDONADO MJ,FERRERO M,LARA JA, FARÍAS ME

San Miguel de Tucumán - Tucumán

Otro; XLV Reunión Anual - Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Bioquímica y Biología Molecular; 2009

Sociedad Argentina de Investigación en Bioquímica y Biología Molecular

The aim of this study was to examine the halophilic archaea communities in high altitude lakes from the Andes Mountains and Puna in South America (HAAL). Due to their extreme conditions, these environments are unique for studying archaeal biodiversity. Water and sediment samples were collected from different lakes: Catal, Chiro, Brava, Vilama and Socompa to perform physicochemical analysis and culture enrichments; these lakes are located between 3000 and 4500 masl at the Northwest of Argentina. The sediment samples were cultivated in MGM 18 % medium added with chloramphenicol (50 µg/mL). The archaeal community of enrichment cultures and original sediment and water samples were studied by 16S rDNA PCR-DGGE. Most of the DGGE bands obtained showed closest sequence similarity with non-identified uncultured archaeon previously published in the Genbank database and only a few bands gave similarities (83 to 98 %) to identified taxa such as Halorubrum spp., Haloarcula marismortui, Halovivax sp., Natronorubrum spp and Haloarchaeon spp.. It became evident from these results that HAAL harbour a  great diversity of potentially novel archaea