UNVEILING RESISTOME PROFILES IN THE SEDIMENTS OF AN ANTARCTIC VOLCANIC ISLAND

In the 20th century, Whalers Bay of Deception Island, Maritime Antarctica, was known as a port where whalers have established for processing whale oil. At present, the island is one of the most visited by tourists. The extent of the anthropogenic impact of human activities is unknown, and there are no studies on microbial resistance/tolerance mechanisms at Whalers Bay. Therefore, this work aimed to investigate the resistome profiles along a biofilm formed on top of sediments at Whalers Bay using metagenomics. The research team of MycoAntar Project collected the sediment samples during the summer 2014-15. Total DNA extraction of four samples along a transect of 27.5 m was performed in duplicate, followed by sequencing using the Illumina HiSeq platform.