Transcriptome responses of benthic microbial communities after chronic and/or acute exposure to diuron

This experiment aimed to understand stress responses of microbial communities differing in chronic exposure to the photosynthesis inhibitor diuron, combining untargeted metatranscriptomics (RNA-seq) and dose-response design. First, river microbial communities were incubated for 5-weeks in microcosms 1/ under constant exposure to 4µg/L of diuron (stressed community) or 2/ without contamination (non-stressed community). Then, both communities were exposed for 1 hour to a gradient of diuron concentrations to investigate differences in stress responses after chronic exposure. This experimental design enabled the determination of contig response trends as well as sensitivity thresholds. Aquatic microbial communities were sampled in a nearby river and then, shared in two groups. One group grown for 5 weeks under 4µg/L of diuron (stressed-community, chronic expoure) while the second group was not exposed to diuron (non-stressed community). Then, the two groups were exposed for one hour to a gradient of 9 diuron concentration (dose-response design) in duplicate such as: 0, 10-4, 10-3, 10-2, 10-1, 1, 10, 50, 100 µg/L).