Abstract:
Sediments lying beneath two brine pools in the Red Sea; Atlantis II deep and Discovery deep were assessed chemically, geologically and phylogenetically. Understanding the extreme nature of these environments is essential in the microbial diversity as a potential mean for identifying new genes and new bacterial traits for biotechnological applications. Screening for bacteria suggested a high diverse community on the class level using 16S rDNA â DGGE technique. Assessment of 91 amplified DGGE clones had revealed only 45 clones to be of good sequence quality. The sequenced clones fell into nine major lineages belonging to Bacteria domain; α, β, and γ subdivisions of Proteobacteria, Cytophagaâ Flavobacteriumâ Bacteroides group (CFB), Clostridia, Bacilli and Cyanobacteria. Along with the phylogenetic assessment, a complete chemical profile of all the metals in the periodic table had been generated revealing a highly contaminated heavy metal environment. Thirty three metals got detected among which are; nickel, iron, chromium, aluminum, manganese, arsenic and zirconium. A Carbon-Hydrogen-Nitrogen-Sulphur (CHNS) profile for both deeps was also generated. The geological era determination of both deeps was provided with electron microscope pictures revealing foraminifers belonging to the Tertiary period (65 â 1.8 mya) which is the age of mammals. In this study, a link between microbial profile and chemical one is being provided. The microbial profile suggested that more investigations need to be done on this extreme environment due to the huge information that could be revealed. The chemical profile provided important information about high heavy metal contents that are toxic to any living organism such as nickel, chromium, arsenic, iron, copper, titanium, aluminum and antimony. More investigations need to be done in the future in order to provide more information about the organisms inhabiting such an extreme environment.
