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Characterization of uncultivated magnetotactic bacteria from the sediments of Yuehu Lake, China

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Abstract

Marine magnetotactic bacteria were collected from the intertidal sediments of Yuehu Lake (China), where their abundance reached 103–104 ind./cm3. Diverse morphotypes of magnetotactic bacteria were observed, including cocci and oval, vibrio-, spirillum-, rod-, elliptical-, handle- and bar-shaped forms. The magnetococci were the most abundant, and had flagella arranged in parallel within a bundle. The majority of magnetosomes were arranged in one, two or multiple chains, although irregular arrangements were also evident. All the results of high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM) analysis show that magnetosome crystals were composed of Fe3O4, and their morphology was specific to particular cell morphotypes. By the 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis, we found fourteen operational taxonomic units (OTUs) which were related to magnetotactic bacteria. Among these, thirteen belonged to the Alphaproteobacteria and one to the Gammaproteobacteria. Compared with known axenic and uncultured marine magnetotactic bacteria, the 16S rRNA gene sequences of most magnetotactic bacteria collected from the Yuehu Lake exhibited sequence identities ranging from 90.1% to 96.2% (<97%). The results indicate that microbial communities containing previously unidentified magnetotactic bacteria occur in the Yuehu Lake.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by Laboratoire International Associé de la Bio-Minéralisation et Nano-Structures. We thank Xu Jianhong and Zheng Xin for kind assistance in sampling, Jiang Ming and Ma Xicheng for help with TEM observations.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory for Marine Ecology and Environmental Sciences, Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao, 266071, China

    Haijian Du, Rui Zhang, Wenyan Zhang, Cong Xu, Yiran Chen, Hongmiao Pan & Tian Xiao

  2. Laboratory for Marine Ecology and Environmental Science, Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, Qingdao, 266071, China

    Haijian Du, Rui Zhang, Wenyan Zhang, Cong Xu, Yiran Chen, Hongmiao Pan & Tian Xiao

  3. College of Resources and Environment, Qingdao Agriculture University, Qingdao, 266109, China

    Ke Zhou

  4. Aix Marseille Université, CNRS, LCB UMR 7257, Institut de Microbiologie de la Méditerranée, Marseille, F-13402, France

    Long-fei Wu

  5. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Cong Xu

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  1. Haijian Du
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  2. Rui Zhang
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  3. Wenyan Zhang
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  7. Ke Zhou
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  9. Tian Xiao
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Correspondence to Tian Xiao.

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Foundation item: The National Natural Science Foundation of China under contract Nos 41606187 and 41276170; the National Natural Science Foundation of China—Shandong Joint Fund for Marine Science Research Centers under contract No. U1406403; the National Natural Science Foundation of China under contract No. 41330962.

These authors contributed equally to this work.

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Du, H., Zhang, R., Zhang, W. et al. Characterization of uncultivated magnetotactic bacteria from the sediments of Yuehu Lake, China. Acta Oceanol. Sin. 36, 94–104 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13131-017-0980-8

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