Abstract
ObjectivesTo characterize the bacterial community of Wind Cave’s Madison aquifer through whole-genome sequencing, and to better understand the bacterial ecology by identifying genes involved in acyl-homoserine lactone (AHL) based quorum-sensing (QS) systems.ResultsGenome-based taxonomic classification revealed the microbial richness present in the pristine Madison aquifer. The strains were found to span eleven genera and fourteen species, of which eight had uncertain taxonomic classifications. The genomes of strains SD129 and SD340 were found to contain the archetypical AHL QS system composed of two genes, luxI and luxR. Surprisingly, the genomes of strains SD115, SD129, SD274 and SD316 were found to contain one to three luxR orphans (solos). Strain SD129, besides possessing an archetypical AHL QS luxI-luxR pair, also contained two luxR solos, while strain SD316 contained three LuxR solos and no luxI-luxR pairs. The ligand-binding domain of two LuxR solos, one each from strains SD129 and SD316, were found to contain novel substitutions not previously reported, thus may represent two LuxR orphans that detection and response to unknown self-produced signal(s), or to signal(s) produced by other organisms.
Highlights
Due to difficulties in access, the microbial life in subsurface aquifers are an under-explored area of microbiology [1]
A recent study has demonstrated that the Madison aquifer, accessed directly by travel through Wind Cave, Wind Cave National Park (WCNP), had a greater bacterial diversity compared to nearby wells that intersected the same aquifer [2]
First we provide wgs, de novo genome assembly and annotation of fourteen diverse bacterial strains isolated from the Madison aquifer accessed via Wind Cave [2]
Summary
Due to difficulties in access, the microbial life in subsurface aquifers are an under-explored area of microbiology [1]. A recent study has demonstrated that the Madison aquifer, accessed directly by travel through Wind Cave, Wind Cave National Park (WCNP), had a greater bacterial diversity compared to nearby wells that intersected the same aquifer [2]. This discrepancy was shown to be Quorum sensing (QS) is a bacterial cell–cell signaling system that employs small compound signals and regulates group behaviors for bacterial-bacterial and bacterial-host interactions [3, 4]. A. Wengert et al BMC Res Notes (2021) 14:175 typical AHL-QS system contains a LuxI (the AHL signal synthase) and a LuxR (transcriptional regulator). In addition to the canonical luxI/ luxR pair, many bacteria contain extra copies of luxR transcriptional regulators that are not proximal to any luxI synthase gene [5]
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