Community composition and toxigenicity analysis of a major riverine cyanobacterial bloom using multiplex-tandem PCR and metagenomics

Cyanobacterial blooms are a major water quality issue and present a potential health risk to humans and animals by producing an array of toxic compounds. To analyse the community composition of a major cyanobacterial bloom spanning ~600kms of the Murray River in Australia in 2016, the V4 hypervariable region of the bacterial 16S rRNA gene (~300 bp) was amplified using the universal bacterial 16S rRNA gene primers and sequenced in multiplex using a paired end 300 bp 600-cycle Illumina MiSeq v3 kit on an Illumina MiSeq (Illumina, USA) instrument. Our study highlights the greater incorporation and potential utility of combining PCR with metagenomic sequencing methods for routine monitoring of cyanobacterial blooms and to understand their ecology.