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Diversity of Culturable Thermophilic Actinobacteria in Hot Springs in Tengchong, China and Studies of their Biosynthetic Gene Profiles

  • Environmental Microbiology
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Abstract

The class Actinobacteria has been a goldmine for the discovery of antibiotics and has attracted interest from both academics and industries. However, an absence of novel approaches during the last few decades has limited the discovery of new microbial natural products useful for industries. Scientists are now focusing on the ecological aspects of diverse environments including unexplored or underexplored habitats and extreme environments in the search for new metabolites. This paper reports on the diversity of culturable actinobacteria associated with hot springs located in Tengchong County, Yunnan Province, southwestern China. A total of 58 thermophilic actinobacterial strains were isolated from the samples collected from ten hot springs distributed over three geothermal fields (e.g., Hehua, Rehai, and Ruidian). Phylogenetic positions and their biosynthetic profiles were analyzed by sequencing 16S rRNA gene and three biosynthetic gene clusters (KS domain of PKS-I, KSα domain of PKS-II and A domain of NRPS). On the basis of 16S rRNA gene phylogenetic analysis, the 58 strains were affiliated with 12 actinobacterial genera: Actinomadura Micromonospora, Microbispora, Micrococcus, Nocardiopsis, Nonomuraea, Promicromonospora, Pseudonocardia, Streptomyces, Thermoactinospora, Thermocatellispora, and Verrucosispora, of which the two novel genera Thermoactinospora and Thermocatellisopora were recently described from among these strains. Considering the biosynthetic potential of these actinobacterial strains, 22 were positive for PCR amplification of at least one of the three biosynthetic gene clusters (PKS-I, PKS-II, and NRPS). These actinobacteria were further subjected to antimicrobial assay against five opportunistic human pathogens (Acinetobacter baumannii, Escherichia coli, Micrococcus luteus, Staphylococcus aureus and Streptococcus faecalis). All of the 22 strains that were positive for PCR amplification of at least one of the biosynthetic gene domains exhibited antimicrobial activities against at least one of the five test organisms. Among the remaining 36 actinobacteria that are negative for PCR amplification of the domains for the biosynthetic genes, 33 strains showed antimicrobial activities against at least one of the five test pathogens. In summary, the findings presented in this study emphasized the importance of underexplored habitats such as Tengchong hot springs as potential sources for search of bioactive molecules.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Key Project of International Cooperation of Ministry of Science & Technology (MOST) (No. 2013DFA31980), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 31070007, 31470139 and 41120124003), Yunnan Provincial Natural Science Foundation (2013FA004), the Program for New Century Excellent Talents in University MOE (NCET-12-0954), and the Fundamental Research Funds for National University (China University of Geosciences-Wuhan). W-J Li was also supported by Guangdong Province Higher Vocational Colleges & Schools Pearl River Scholar Funded Scheme (2014). We are grateful to three anonymous reviewers, whose constructive criticisms significantly improved the quality of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Biocontrol and Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Plant Resources, School of Life Sciences, Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China

    Lan Liu, Nimaichand Salam, En-Min Zhou & Wen-Jun Li

  2. Yunnan Institute of Microbiology, Yunnan University, Kunming, China

    Jian-Yu Jiao, En-Min Zhou, Yi-Rui Yin, Hong Ming & Wen-Jun Li

  3. Medical Faculty of Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming University of Science and Technology, Kunming, China

    Jian-Yu Jiao

  4. State Key Laboratory of Biogeology and Environmental Geology, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, China

    Hong-Chen Jiang

  5. College of Life Sciences and Technology, Xinxiang Medical University, Xinxiang, China

    Hong Ming

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  1. Lan Liu
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Liu, L., Salam, N., Jiao, JY. et al. Diversity of Culturable Thermophilic Actinobacteria in Hot Springs in Tengchong, China and Studies of their Biosynthetic Gene Profiles. Microb Ecol 72, 150–162 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00248-016-0756-2

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