Early bacterial biofilm colonizers in the coastal waters of Mauritius

Background: The past years have witnessed a growing number of researches in biofilm forming communities due to their environmental and maritime industrial implications. To gain a better understanding of the early bacterial biofilm community, microfiber nets were used as artificial substrates and incubated for a period of 24 h in Mauritian coastal waters. Next-generation sequencing technologies were employed as a tool for identification of early bacterial communities. Different genes associated with quorum sensing and cell motility were further investigated. Results: Proteobacteria were identified as the predominant bacterial microorganisms in the biofilm within the 24 h incubation, of which members affiliated to Gammaproteobacteria, Alphaproteobacteria and Betaproteobacteria were among the most abundant classes. The biofilm community patterns were also driven by phyla such as Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes, Chloroflexi, Actinobacteria and Verrucomicrobia. The functional analysis based on KEGG classification indicated high activities in carbohydrate, lipid and amino acids metabolism. Different genes encoding for luxI, lasI, agrC, flhA, cheA and cheB showed the involvement of microbial members in quorum sensing and cell motility. Conclusion: This study provides both an insight on the early bacterial biofilm forming community and the genes involved in quorum sensing and bacterial cell motility.

Repetitive element palindromic PCR (rep-PCR) as a genetic tool to study interspecific diversity in Euphorbiaceae family

Background The classification of diversity in germplasm collections is important for plant breeding. The repetitive element palindromic-polymerase chain reaction (rep-PCR) technique was used to investigate inter-specific diversity within 17 species from the Euphorbiaceae family using REP and BOX primers. Results The agglomerative cluster analysis was used to evaluate the scoring data. BOX and REP gave amplification with polymorphism of 98.84% and 100% respectively. REP marker demarcated between the subgenus peltatae. Both markers confirmed Jatropha tanjorensis as a natural hybrid between Jatropha gossypifolia and Jatropha curcas. Five random sequences from the rep-PCR gels were chosen, cloned and sequenced. The blast results demonstrated that the amplified products were from the mitochondrial genomes. Conclusion The rep-PCR molecular tool can be used to characterize diversity in plants as they are suitable for distinguishing eukaryotic genomes effectively.