Predictive prokaryotic functional metagenomics applied on an acid mine drainage affected environment

BONILLA, JOSÉ O.; KURTH, DANIEL G.; VILLEGAS, LILIANA B.

Villa de Merlo

Congreso; XXXV Reunión Científica Anual Sociedad de Biología de Cuyo; 2017

Sociedad de Biología de Cuyo

In San Luis, Argentina, the acid mine drainage of an abandoned gold mine is released into La Carolina stream. In previous studies, we determined that physicochemical parameters and both eukaryotic and prokaryotic diversity are affected by the presence of thismine in the study area. Likewise, we stablished specific relations between physicochemical parameters and microbial taxonomic groups. The aim of the present study is to determine the prokaryotic functional differences among samples according to the location in the study area. Twelve sediment samples from the mine (7) and from the stream (5), before and after receiving the drainage, were selected to 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing (MR DNA, TX, USA) on MiSeq platform (Illumina). PICRUSt software (www.picrust.github.io) was used topredict metagenome functional content from 16S rRNA marker gene using KEGG Orthology (KO) database. Principal Component Analysis was performed to visualize the distribution of functions and samples. This analysis showed that functions such as environmental adaptation, biosynthesis of secondary metabolites, cellular processes and signaling, protein biosynthesis, energy metabolism, cell motility and genetic information processing were present to a greater extent in the samples taken from the south and lateral galleries of the mine, characterized by high heavy metal concentrations and low pH values. Cell communication function was associated to stream and main gallery samples, which were characterized by normal parameters. These results indicate that extreme conditions make to microorganisms to maintain an active metabolism, while cell communication is associated to normal conditions, where it is expected to find stable consortia.