Cultivable bacteria collected in an iron ore mine and a crystal cave revealed rare and unknown species by whole genome sequencing

In the area of the national geopark Westerwald-Lahn-Taunus, diverse samples from an iron ore mine and a crystal cave were collected. Sampling was done twice in 2024, July and September. A total of 21 samples were taken from different areas. Diverse samples from water sources, sediments, soil, surface swabs from calcite sinter, metal structures, rock, timber, cave air, and concrete channel were collected, bacteria were cultivated and subcultivated on agar plates (blood agar plates, MacConkey agar plates, and Schaedler agar plates; OXOID, United Kingdom). 116 bacteria could be isolated and partially identified by MALTI-TOF MS. All bacteria were whole genome sequenced. Total DNA was extracted and sequenced using Native Barcoding Kits 24 and 96 V14 from Oxford Nanopore Technologies, United Kingdom. Whole genome assembly was performed by Flye and Unicycler with reads basecalled by Dorado (super accuracy basecalling model). Assembled genomes were polished using read mapping within CLC Genomic Workbench. Authors: Christopher Gran, Silke Zechel-Gran, Benedikt Luecker, Jane Falgenhauer, Gerd Mathes, Paul Herrmann, Torsten Hain, Eugen Domann