CHARACTERIZATION OF MICROBIAL POPULATIONS OF LAKE VAN BY 16S METAGENOMICS STUDY

Abstract

Van Lake, located in Eastern Anatolia Region, is the largest lake in Turkey. This lake features alkaline and saline soda lake. Since there are few studies focused on microbial diversity of alkaline environments, it is very important to reveal the diversity of microorganisms of Van Lake because of the wide range of biotechnological uses of these microorganisms and their ecological roles in lake ecosystem. Next generation sequencing (NGS) allow us to sequence DNA and RNA much more quickly and cheaply than the previously used Sanger sequencing for the rapid analysis of the composition and diversity of microbial communities in several habitats. We applied the high throughput techniques of NGS to the metagenomics study of Van Lake, by assessing its PCR amplicon of 16S rDNA sequences (V3–V4 regions). The analyses revealed Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria and Verrucomicrobia phyla were most abundant. Archaea members were represented by Euryarchaeota phylum. Results concluded that Bacteria domain were dominant in Van Lake.