Maricostems

Neglected microbial diversity of coastal hypersaline environments and marine transition areas: study of its dark matter and hidden treasures

Maricostems is financed by the E.U “Next Generation EU” by the PRIN 2022 framework 

(Project n°: 2022FLKW8E) 

ABSTRACT

Transitional waters include a plethora of different dynamic environments, such as estuarine areas, coastal lagoons, salterns, and salt marshes, showing heterogeneous features. These ecosystems are subject to repeated and sudden variations of several environmental parameters (e.g., pH, temperature, salinity) and sometimes to strong anthropic stress, affecting microbial communities that need a high degree of adaptation. Most of these environments and their "microbial" communities, including the viral component, are underrated, and their chemical and biological diversity is still underestimated. Thus, these environments deserve to be studied in detail to understand their full ecological role and potential to host pathogens and/or new microbial strains (or neglected species), having unique characteristics exploitable for discovering new bioactive molecules.

In this project, three selected marine transition areas (the "Saline di Tarquinia", non-active saltern; the "Saline Conti Vecchi", active saltern; and the Venice lagoon) will be studied for their microbial (prokaryote and eukaryote) and viral biotas. Although some microbiological studies have previously investigated these sites, to our knowledge, no in-depth metagenomic/metatranscriptomic study is available yet. Thus, in this proposal, the environmental biodiversity will be analyzed to depict its functionality and potential to host possible pathogens or microorganisms that are precious for biotechnological applications (e.g., bioactive molecules).

The studies will be carried out using metagenomic and metatranscriptomic approaches. These approaches will promptly capture the huge genetic variability of the studied communities and advance valuable information to explore their rich biodiversity and functionality. This will permit a deep profiling of the studied communities at taxonomic and functional levels. Hence, it will allow the depiction of the communities and their functions as a whole, but also the fraction expressing the community potential and its ecological role (e.g., biogeochemical cycles). Specific genes related to peculiar metabolic pathways (e.g., biodegradation of recalcitrant compounds) or resistance characters (antibiotics and/or heavy metals) representing important environmental and social issues will also be revealed.

Since the selected environments could represent a reservoir for pathogens harboring also resistance genes, the study will supply a scenario of the actual harmful phenotypes. Nevertheless, these environments represent a rich treasure of hidden microbial diversity with high potential for medical and/or environmental applications. Therefore, the presented molecular biology approaches will help disclose the microbial potential selected by the studied coastal environments.

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