Transcriptome responses of benthic microbial communities after chronic and/or acute exposure to diuron. 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. Overall design: 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).