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ARS Home » Midwest Area » Madison, Wisconsin » U.S. Dairy Forage Research Center » Cell Wall Biology and Utilization Research » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #377951
Research Project: Improving Utilization of Forages in Integrated Dairy Production Systems to Enhance Sustainable Farming Systems and Food Security

Location: Cell Wall Biology and Utilization Research

Title: The biogeography of Streptomyces in New Zealand enabled by high-throughput sequencing of genus-specific rpoB amplicons

Author
item HIGGINS, STEVEN - Boyce Thompson Institute
item Panke-Buisse, Kevin
item BUCKLEY, DANIEL - Cornell University

Submitted to: Environmental Microbiology Reports
Publication Type: Peer Reviewed Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 12/2/2020
Publication Date: 12/7/2020
Citation: Higgins, S.A., Panke-Buisse, K., Buckley, D.H. 2020. The biogeography of Streptomyces in New Zealand enabled by high-throughput sequencing of genus-specific rpoB amplicons. Environmental Microbiology Reports. 23(3):1452-1468. https://doi.org/10.1111/1462-2920.15350.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1462-2920.15350

Interpretive Summary: The genus Streptomyces is a major source of clinically useful antibiotics. We carried out a biogeographical survey of Streptomyces using a high-throughput sequencing approach. Our results reveal that currently cultivated isolates represent only a small fraction of Streptomyces diversity and that most species have yet to be described. It follows that these uncultivated fractions may hold further therapeutic value than what has already been described.

Technical Abstract: We evaluated Streptomyces biogeography in soils along a 1200 km latitudinal transect across New Zealand. Streptomyces diversity was examined using high-throughput sequencing of rpoB amplicons generated with a Streptomyces-specific primer set. We detected 1,287 Streptomyces rpoB operational taxonomic units (OTUs) with 159 rpoB OTUs per site. Only 12% (n = 149) of these OTUs matched rpoB sequences from cultured specimens at 99% nucleotide identity. Streptomyces phylogenetic diversity (Faith’s PD) was correlated with soil pH, mean annual temperature, and plant community richness, but not with latitude. In addition, soil pH and plant community richness both explained significant variation in Streptomyces beta diversity. Streptomyces communities exhibited both high dissimilarity and strong dominance of one or a few species at each site. Taken together, these results suggest that dispersal limitation due to competitive interactions limits the colonization success of spores that relocate to new sites.