Molecular characterization of bacteria from sponges

Abstract

The bacteria associated within sponges mostly are uncultured bacteria. The molecular biological techniques have been employed to investigate the bacterial community associated with sponges especially the uncultured bacteria. The aims of this study are to identify the bacteria-associated with sponges and investigate the total bacteria community within sponges using molecular techniques. Sponges within Karah Island ocean region at the northern part of Terengganu had been focused at depths of 5 to 10 meters off the island. The Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) and 16S rDNA clone library were applied in order to investigate the diversity of bacteria on sponges thus identify the uncultured bacteria. The RAPD profiles shows monomorphic pattern for each Operon Primers. This indicated that the small sample size will influence the diversity of bacteria community. However the closest match of each strain indicated 100% uncultured bacteria have been identified from the sponge. Sequences of bacterial strains were access using BLAST (Basic Local Alignment Search Tool) and revealed the four bacteria phyla; Proteobacterium, Bacteriodetes, Bacterium, and Cyanobacterium. In this study, the community of Proteobacterium was majority and perhaps in close relationship with sponges. This study revealed that the predominant bacteria diversity within sponges were similar even from the different geographic region. The similarity of the strains sequence were more than 90% and showing the 16S rDNA clone library analysis can be applied to obtain precise results in term of the bacterial community.