An 18S rRNA Workflow for Characterizing Protists in Sewage, with a Focus on Zoonotic Trichomonads.

ABSTRACT: Microbial eukaryotes (protists) are important components of terrestrial and aquatic environments, as well as animal and human microbiomes. Their relationships with metazoa range from mutualistic to parasitic and zoonotic (i.e., transmissible between humans and animals). Despite their ecological importance, our knowledge of protists in urban environments lags behind that of bacteria, largely due to a lack of experimentally validated high-throughput protocols that produce accurate estimates of protist diversity while minimizing non-protist DNA representation. We optimized protocols for detecting zoonotic protists in raw sewage samples, with a focus on trichomonad taxa. First, we investigated the utility of two commonly used variable regions of the 18S rRNA marker gene, V4 and V9, by amplifyi

SUBMITTER: Maritz JM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5653731 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature