Community of a port area sediment and from samples enriched with heavy metals Raw sequence reads

Sulfate-reducing bacteria (BRS) are a group of anaerobic bacteria that have great potential for bioremediation studies of areas contaminated with heavy metals. The microbial community is sensitive to toxicity caused by metals and bacteria as BRS has its activity decreased. Thus, to potentiate this use it is still necessary to know which groups of sulfate-reducing bacteria are actually more resistant to metals. Port areas are known around the world as areas that present a number of metals above acceptable levels, being areas where the microbial community has been exposed by this type of contamination for a long period of time and can be an important inoculum for insulation of metal-resistant BRS. In this way, the objective of the present study analyzed how heavy metals influence the community of sulfate-reducing bacteria present in the sediment of a port area and try to isolate resistant species that can be used in future biotechnological applications.