Influence of 16S rRNA Hypervariable Region on Estimates of Bacterial Diversity and Community Composition in Seawater and Marine Sediment.

ABSTRACT: To assess the influence of 16S ribosomal RNA (rRNA) tag choice on estimates of microbial diversity and/or community composition in seawater and marine sediment, we examined bacterial diversity and community composition from a site in the Central North Atlantic and a site in the Equatorial Pacific. For each site, we analyzed samples from four zones in the water column, a seafloor sediment sample, and two subseafloor sediment horizons (with stratigraphic ages of 1.5 and 5.5 million years old). We amplified both the V4 and V6 hypervariable regions of the 16S rRNA gene and clustered the sequences into operational taxonomic units (OTUs) of 97% similarity to analyze for diversity and community composition. OTU richness is much higher with the V6 tag than with the V4 tag, and subsequently OTU-lev

SUBMITTER: Kerrigan Z 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6646839 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature