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Aerosol microbial community structure analysis based on two different sequencing platforms

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Abstract

As the main biological components of the air ecosystem, airborne microorganisms play an important role in ecosystem function, and most existing studies focus on their health and environmental effects, while ignoring ecological effects. In this study, air microbial samples from two sampling points in the coastal city of Qingdao were collected by a large volume air sampler. The Illumina MiSeq and PacBio high-throughput sequencing methods were used to analyze the microbial community structure and diversity of the two sampling points. The results showed that there were significant differences in the number and relative abundances of microorganisms identified by the two platforms, and with the refinement of the sample classification, the differences in the community became increasingly significant. Proteobacteria and Firmicutes were the dominant bacterial phyla among the airborne microorganisms. MiSeq sequencing showed that the relative abundances of unidentified bacteria were as high as 8.03–16.42% in MiSeq sequencing, while they were almost undetected in PacBio sequencing. Based on the different sequencing platforms, Bacilli, Gammaproteobacteria and Alphaproteobacteria could be seen as significant gaps in the two sampling points. Betaproteobacteria showed differences only in the coastal area, while the other 14 classes were differentially abundant in the urban area. Pseudomonas was the main genus in the aerosol, followed by Lactococcus. The relative abundances of bacterial taxa displayed statistically significant differences in the different functional areas. There were more diverse microbes in the urban area than in the coastal area; moreover, the relative abundances of dominant genera showed significant differences, such as Variovorax and Deinococcus.

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Acknowledgements

This work was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31570541, 31170509). We sincerely thank the staff at WWTPs of Jiaonan, Shandong Province, China for their help with sampling. The authors also thank other members of our laboratory who provided their valuable and constructive suggestions.

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  1. School of Environmental and Municipal Engineering, Qingdao University of Technology, Qingdao, 266033, China

    Xiu-lu Lang, Ai-ling Xu, Xiang Chen & Zhi-wen Song

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  1. Xiu-lu Lang
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Correspondence to Zhi-wen Song.

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Lang, Xl., Xu, Al., Chen, X. et al. Aerosol microbial community structure analysis based on two different sequencing platforms. Aerobiologia 36, 617–630 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10453-020-09655-7

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