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Characterization of culturable Paenibacillus spp. from the snow surface on the high Antarctic Plateau (DOME C) and their dissemination in the Concordia research station

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Abstract

Culturable psychrotolerant bacteria were isolated from the top snow on the high Antarctic Plateau surrounding the research station Concordia. A total of 80 isolates were recovered, by enrichment cultures, from two different isolation sites (a distant pristine site [75° S 123° E] and a site near the secondary runway of Concordia). All isolates were classified to the genus Paenibacillus by 16S rRNA gene phylogenetic analysis and belonged to two different species (based on threshold of 97 % similarity in 16S rRNA gene sequence). ERIC-PCR fingerprinting indicated that the isolates from the two different sites were not all clonal. All isolates grew well from 4 to 37 °C and were resistant to ampicillin and streptomycin. In addition, the isolates from the secondary runway were resistant to chromate and sensitive to chloramphenicol, contrary to those from the pristine site. The isolates were compared to 29 Paenibacillus isolates, which were previously recovered from inside the Concordia research station. One of these inside isolates showed ERIC- and REP-PCR fingerprinting profiles identical to those of the runway isolates and was the only inside isolate that was resistant to chromate and sensitive to chloramphenicol. The latter suggested that dissemination of culturable Paenibacillus strains between the harsh Antarctic environment and the inside of the Concordia research station occurred. In addition, inducible prophages, which are potentially involved in horizontal dissemination of genes, were detected in Paenibacillus isolates recovered from outside and inside the station. The highest lysogeny was observed in strains harvested from the hostile environment outside the station.

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Acknowledgments

Authors wish to thank all of the staff at “Concordia” Station, for the logistic help and support, the “Institute Polaire Paul Emile Victor” (IPEV) and the Italian “Programma Nazionale di Richerche in Antartide” (PNRA) and the MNA (Museo Nazionale dell’Antartide), which made the expedition possible. This work was supported by the European Space Agency (ESA-PRODEX) and the Belgan Science Policy (Belspo) through the EXANAM project (C90359). LVM and MD thank Léna Demazy for technical support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Unit of Microbiology, Expert Group Molecular and Cellular Biology, Belgian Nuclear Research Centre (SCK•CEN), Boeretang 200, 2400, Mol, Belgium

    Rob Van Houdt, Ann Provoost & Natalie Leys

  2. Laboratoire de Génétique et Physiologie Bactérienne, IBMM, Faculté des Sciences, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Gosselies, Belgium

    Marie Deghorain & Laurence Van Melderen

  3. Laboratoire de Parasitologie Moléculaire, IBMM, Faculté des Sciences, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Gosselies, Belgium

    Marjorie Vermeersch & David Perez-Morga

  4. Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Messina, Messina, Italy

    Angelina Lo Giudice & Luigi Michaud

Authors
  1. Rob Van Houdt
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  2. Marie Deghorain
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  3. Marjorie Vermeersch
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  4. Ann Provoost
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  5. Angelina Lo Giudice
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  6. Natalie Leys
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  7. David Perez-Morga
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  8. Laurence Van Melderen
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  9. Luigi Michaud
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Rob Van Houdt.

Additional information

Communicated by L. Huang.

Electronic supplementary material

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792_2013_539_MOESM1_ESM.pdf

Supplementary Fig. 1. Phylogenetic position of all isolates analyzed during this study among all Paenibacillus species type strains, based on 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis. Bootstrap branch confidence estimates are indicated. Supplementary material 1 (PDF 61 kb)

792_2013_539_MOESM2_ESM.docx

Supplementary Table 1. Phage content of the isolates recovered from outside and inside the Concordia station. Supplementary material 2 (DOCX 37 kb)

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Van Houdt, R., Deghorain, M., Vermeersch, M. et al. Characterization of culturable Paenibacillus spp. from the snow surface on the high Antarctic Plateau (DOME C) and their dissemination in the Concordia research station. Extremophiles 17, 565–573 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00792-013-0539-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00792-013-0539-3

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