Hot springs Targeted Locus (Loci). hot springs metagenome

Yunnan Province and Tibet of China are located in the northeastern part of the Yunnan-Tibet geothermal zone, one of the most active geothermal areas in the world, and host thousands of hot springs. However, it still lacks a comprehensive and detailed understanding for prokaryotic diversity in these hot springs compared to other geothermal zones over the world. Little is known about the prokaryotic community in these hot springs. In the present study, bacterial and archaeal diversity in sixteen hot springs (pH 3.2~8.6; Temperature 47~96 ºC) of Yunnan Province and Tibet were investigated by using barcoded 16S rRNA gene-pyrosequencing approach. Sequence analysis revealed that no single bacterial phylum was dominant in all the investigated hot springs. Aquificae, Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, Deinococcus-Thermus and Bacteroidetes comprised the large portion of communities of acidic hot springs. Non-acidic hot springs harbored more bacterial phyla than acidic springs, and the composition of structure were variable among these samples. Desulfurococcales and unclassified Crenarchaeota were the dominate groups in archaeal communities of most investigated non-acidic hot springs, and acidic hot springs have distinct and more simple archaeal community structure related to non-acidic samples. The phylogenetic analysis showed that the investigated samples possess many phylogenetic lineages, which have not ever been detected in other hot springs over the world - affiliated with Aquificae and Crenarchaeota, two important phyla in terrestrial hot springs. In addition, our results revealed some differences in community compositions between the studied and Yellowstone hot springs, those later having ever been investigated extensively. In summary, this study significantly enhanced our understanding on prokaryotes in terrestrial hot spring.