Blue Crab Portunis Segnis Microbiome - 16S rDNA metabarcoding - Projet VALOPOLYMER

The blue crab Portunus segnis is an invasive species that has been colonizing the Tunisian coasts since 2014. It is currently marketed as a food, and we aim at exploring the associated bacterial diversity in order to open up new ways of valorization. In this study, different blue crab samples were collected from the coastal area of Sfax, Tunisia. Different parts of this shellfish, such as flesh, gills, viscera, carapace scraping sample, as well as three successive blue crab washing waters from the production plant were studied. Bacterial DNA was extracted from each fraction and sequenced using metabarcoding approach targeting the V3-V4 region of the 16S rDNA.