Summary update 2019
At this stage of the project
we have successfully captured for the first time specimens of Teredo navalis
from the Romanian Black Sea area, identified mainly on the basis of posterior pellets.
These specimens were much larger than expected after deplition for 6 months in
the water. Following dissection, gill tissue was collected and used for enrichment
cultures on cellulose or carboxymethylcellulose as carbon source, In the same time total DNA was isolated and
purified, using dedicated extraction kits. The DNA samples obtained were
sufficiently concentrated and had an adequate degree of purity for NGS sequencing.
Because the majority of DNA in the samples is from the host organism, NGS
sequencing was performed in depth and as a result generated a very large volume
of sequences. These have been processed and compared using issues available on
Github, in command line on Linux operating system. This processing was achieved
due to an intense learning and study stage, at the University of Gottingen, using
bioinformatics resources and their expertise in metagenomics data processing. Phylogenetic
abundance analysis of the microbial communities from the analyzed samples
revealed that the strains isolated in pure culture are found within these
communities: Labrenzia sp., Swanella sp., Vibrio sp. Some of the
isolates obtained presented a clear zone around the colony when cultivated with cellulose,
followed by staining with Congo Red.
Papers
Chiciudean I., Mereuta I.,Lascu I.,
Borges L.M.S., Filimon A., Stoica I., Tanase A.M., Looking for cellulolytic
activity in the Black Sea shipworms gill symbionts, Biotechnology Congress
2019, April 11-13, Valencia, Spain.
Workshops:
1.
International
Course in Microbial Ecology “Hands-on training in Prokaryotic and Eukaryotic
metagenomics (ICME10)”., University Milano Bicocca 6-10th May 2019, Italy.
2.
7th
International Workshop on Prokaryotic Genomics&Bioinformatics, Gottingen,
19-20th September, 2019, Germany.
