DNRA microbiota of the NCP soil

Denitrification (DNF) and dissimilatory nitrate reduction to ammonium (DNRA) are two different pathways for nitrogen reduction metabolism. DNF results in nitrogen loss from soil, while DNRA conserves nitrogen as ammonium. However, the competition mechanism between DNF and DNRA is not clearly understood. The incubations with an agricultural soil from the North China Plain were conducted under different aeration conditions with addition of nitrite and different dosage of glucose. In order to explore the DNRA microbiota, the extracted DNA of soil samples was also used as the template to amplify the fragment of nrfA gene. Touch-down PCR reaction was performed, and the PCR productions were purified. Sequencing of the PCR amplicons and quality control of raw data were performed using the Illumina MiSeq system.