Abstract:
Thermal tolerant enzyme producing bacteria can be successfully used in industrial settings to
minimize environmental impacts caused by excess use of chemical catalysts in production chains.
Hot springs are a major habitat for extremophiles which produce extremozymes. Characterization and
identification of microbial community in hot springs provide an initial platform for identification of
extremophilic microorganisms for industrial applications. In the present study, the diversity and
relative abundance of industrially important enzyme producing microbial genera in hot springs in Sri
Lanka was studied. Water samples were collected from surface and bottom of the hot springs.
Temperature, conductivity, pH and Dissolved Oxygen (DO) were measured at the site using portable
meters. To analyse microbial community (bacteria and archaea) of hot springs, extracted DNA was
sequenced through 16s rDNA amplicon sequencing on Illumina MiSeq platform. Sequencing data
were analyzed using Mother V. 1.42 software. METAGENassist web server tool was used to predict
the metabolic functional diversity of the bacterial and archaeal communities. The temperature of the
hot springs were ranged from 33.7 0C to 55.4 0C where conductivity, pH and DO levels were reneged
from 801 to 1507 μS/cm, 7.20 to 8.27 and 1.05 – 3.5 mg/L respectively. The microbial communities
of the hot springs were mostly comprised of Bacteria and Archaea. Bacteria was the dominant
component respectively 99% and only <1% Archaea. Chloflexus, Rubelllimicrobium, Acinetobacter,
Pseudomonas, Methylobacterium, Tepidimonas, Rheinheimera, Flavobacterium, and Vogesella were
the major bacteria genera recorded in all hot springs. The metabolic inference analysis of the
microbial community of hot springs comprised of dinitrogen-fixing bacteria, lignin degraders,
nitrogen and sulfate reducers, nitrogen fixation bacteria, sulfur reducers, denitrifying bacteria,
cellulose degraders and sugar fermentors. Thus the results of the present study implied that the hot
springs could be a useful source of bacteria for future industrial perspectives. Further studies are in
progress along with a metagenomic analysis.
Keywords: Hot springs; Community analysis; Extremophiles; NGS analysis; Biotechnological
Prospects
