Computational analysis of microbial community using amplicon sequencing of 16S rRNA gene

Abstract

The microbial community has various essential applications in multiple sections such as pharmaceuticals, enzyme production, food industry and waste management. Microbes produce metabolites (crucial products for the industrial process) and utilize substrate which plays a vital role in solid waste degradation. The computational metagenomic approach is considered as a solution for these problems. Microbial species are widely used for the bioremediation of solid waste materials. In this study, the solid waste contains wheat straw and human faeces occupied in a semi-continuous bio-converter condition for 105 days. The metagenomic data of six samples of solid waste were retrieved in FASTQ format from the ENA database. The sequence reads are analyzed using the QIIME (Quantitative Insights into Microbial Ecology) pipeline. This study includes demultiplexing, quality checking, OTU (Operational Taxonomic Unit) clustering, taxonomic assignment, phylogenetic analysis, biodiversity analysis and visualizations of solid waste samples. Results showed that solid waste metagenome is characterized by phyla Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes and Proteobacteria and genera Faecalibacterium, Roseburia, Pseudomonas and Bacillus are abundant in all samples. These microbial communities have potential application in the degradation of lignocellulosic waste. Hence, these microorganisms may be used to treat several solid waste materials and are considered an effective bioremediating agent for several pollutants.