Myxobacteria in high moor and fen: An astonishing diversity in a neglected extreme habitat

Abstract

Increasing antibiotic resistances of numerous pathogens mean that myxobacteria, well known producers of new antibiotics, are becoming more and more interesting. More than 100 secondary metabolites, most of them with bioactivity, were described from the order Myxococcales. Especially new myxobacterial genera and species turned out to be reliable sources for novel antibiotics and can be isolated from uncommon neglected habitats like, for example, acidic soils. Almost nothing is known about the diversity of myxobacteria in moors, except some information from cultivation studies of the 1970s. Therefore, we evaluated the myxobacterial community composition of acidic high moor and fen both with cultivation‐independent 16S rRNA clone bank analysis and with cultivation. Phylogenetic analyses of clone sequences revealed a great potential of undescribed myxobacteria in high moor and fen, whereby all sequences represent unknown taxa and were detected exclusively by cultivation‐independent analyses. However, many clones were assigned to sequences from other cultivation‐independent studies of eubacterial diversity in acidic habitats. Cultivation revealed different strains exclusively from the genus Corallococcus. Our study shows that the neglected habitat moor is a promising source and of high interest with regard to the cultivation of prospective new bioactive secondary metabolite producing myxobacteria.

Culture-dependent and -independent methods revealed an abundant myxobacterial community shaped by other bacteria and pH in Dinghushan acidic soils

“…Different soil samples exhibited significantly differences in the abundance and diversity of myxobacteria ( Fig 3 ), which may relate to environmental factors. Correlation analysis revealed that soil pH was key positive correlated with myxobacterial community ( Table 2 ), which were in accordance with previously studies [ 9 , 11 , 17 ]. Moreover, the sequences of Myxococcus and Corallococcus were detected in neutral environments and were not found in acidic habitats [ 9 , 11 , 47 ].…”

“…Combined with these analyses, we inferred that Corallococcus -strains were only present in forms of myxospores in-situ environments or that the vegetative cells/myxospores were strongly under-represented and therefore resisted the total genomic DNA extraction [ 11 ]. Similar to this study, Myxococcus and Corallococcus were frequently isolated from different habitats [ 11 , 15 ], probably suggesting that they grow faster and easily form fruiting bodies. Intriguingly, three potential novel species were detected in all 21 culturable strains, indicating the high possibility to isolate new myxobacterial taxa from subtropical acidic forest soils.…”

“…Mohr et al . [ 11 ] found an astonishing myxobacterial diversity in high moor and fen with pH between 4.0 and 7.0 with cultivation-based and cultivation-independent methods. Moreover, Mohr et al .…”

Diversity of Myxobacteria—We Only See the Tip of the Iceberg

“…Myxobacteria are soil dwelling deltaproteobacteria and are distributed all over the world. Temperate zones, tropical rain forests, arctic tundra, deserts, acidic soils [ 1 , 2 , 3 ], marine and other saline environments [ 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 ], and even caves [ 8 ], for example, are appropriate habitats. Myxobacteria can be isolated from various natural sources as soil, bark, rotting wood, leaves of trees, compost [ 9 ], or dung of herbivores [ 1 , 10 ].…”

Meta-16S rRNA gene phylogenetic reconstruction reveals astonishing diversity of the cosmopolitan myxobacteria

“…According to the explanation for this phenomenon by Reichenbach (19), they are not actually indigenous limnetic organisms, and should originally come from terrestrial surroundings, and are finally transported into water bodies. Surprisingly, myxobacteria have also found in some extreme conditions, such as acidic wetlands (21), saline-alkaline soils (22), the arid desert (23), and even hot springs (24). More unexpectedly, a few myxobacteria have sporadically isolated from marine habitats (25), and different from known terrestrial myxobacteria, particularly in the requirement of sodium chloride roughly equivalent to the salinity of seawater (26).…”