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Diluted conventional media improve the microbial cultivability from aquarium seawater

  • Microbial Ecology and Environmental Microbiology
  • Published:
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Abstract

The cultivation of microbial species remains a primary challenge in microbiology and obtaining pure cultures is essential for the study of microbial physiology and function. When isolating microorganisms from aquaculture environments, Vibrio are the most dominate isolates on the media that are commonly used. In order to expand our ability to study microbial species, an easy-operation and low-cost medium that can reduce the interference of Vibrio strains and increase the cultivability of other bacteria is urgently needed. We compared viable cell counts on conventional media (CM; including Marine Agar 2216 and LB media) and diluted media (DM; including 1/10-Marine Agar 2216, 1/10-LB). We also assessed the diversity of cultivable microorganisms under high and low nutrient conditions by a plate-wash strategy coupled with high-throughput sequencing of the V4 hypervariable region of the 16S rRNA gene. The results show that microbial communities from DM, especially 1/10-Marine Agar 2216, are more diverse than those obtained from CM. Vibrio isolates were reduced on DM. PICRUSt analysis revealed that nutrient composition is a significant contributor to the diversity and function of the cultivable microbial communities. Bacteria grown on CM possess more pathogenic characteristics, whereas DM favors the growth of bacteria that have multiple metabolic functions. Collectively, our data provide strong evidence that dilution of CM influences the cultivability of bacteria from aquaculture seawater. It also supports that DM can expand the range of microbial species that can be cultivated. This study also provides insights for media design in microbial cultivation from aquaculture systems.

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Acknowledgements

This research was carried out with the support of China Agriculture Research System (CARS-48), China ASEAN Maritime Cooperation Fund Project (2016–2018), and the Fundamental Research Funds for Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences (2017HY-ZD10).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Maricultural Organism Disease Control, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Laboratory for Marine Fisheries Science and Food Production Processes, Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, Yellow Sea Fisheries Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences, Qingdao, 266071, P. R. China

    Jing Sun, Qian Yang & Jie Huang

  2. Qingdao Aquarium, Qingdao, 266003, P. R. China

    Jiazhen Guo

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  1. Jing Sun
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Correspondence to Jie Huang.

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Sun, J., Guo, J., Yang, Q. et al. Diluted conventional media improve the microbial cultivability from aquarium seawater. J Microbiol. 57, 759–768 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12275-019-9175-7

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