ABSTRACT
Aim: To explore bacterial diversity associated to polyketide synthase (PKS) genes in the TsoKar brackish metagenome.Methodology: The metagenomic DNA of TsoKar water and sediment samples were isolated and amplified using pks specific degenerate primers. PCR amplified products were analysed using Ion Torrent PGM platform and revealed a total of 2,11,030 reads with 534 contigs and 55% of G+C content. The results of BLASTx was further analyzed for species diversity using MEGAN5 software. Results: Halomonas was found to be the dominant phyla followed by Cyanobium, Acinetobacter and Burkholderia, respectively, along with majority of uncultured microorganisms present in TsoKar metagenome. Since TsoKar is a brackish water lake, and brackish aquatic ecosystems are a major hub of diverse microbes was also revealed in this study. TsoKar metagenomic sequence with accession number SRR8381943 was deposited in SRA database. Interpretation: TsoKar Lake is considered as one of the most important biosphere reserves. The results of this study confirm that this unique niche harbors good bacterial diversity associated with polyketide synthase genes, which justifies the idea of bioprospecting such niches for the discovery of novel metabolites like antimicrobial compounds using next-generation sequencing approach