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    The Isolation and Characterization of Untapped Diversity of Culturable Bacteria in the Red Sea Mangrove Ecosystem

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    Name:
    PhD Dissertation_Fatmah Sefrji_Summer 2020.pdf
    Size:
    3.021Mb
    Format:
    PDF
    Description:
    PhD Dissertation
    Embargo End Date:
    2021-07-21
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    Type
    Dissertation
    Authors
    Sefrji, Fatmah cc
    Advisors
    Daffonchio, Daniele cc
    Committee members
    Pain, Arnab cc
    Moran, Xose Anxelu G. cc
    Crotti, Elena Sara
    Program
    Bioscience
    KAUST Department
    Biological and Environmental Sciences and Engineering (BESE) Division
    Date
    2020-05
    Embargo End Date
    2021-07-21
    Permanent link to this record
    http://hdl.handle.net/10754/664339
    
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Access Restrictions
    At the time of archiving, the student author of this dissertation opted to temporarily restrict access to it. The full text of this dissertation will become available to the public after the expiration of the embargo on 2021-07-21.
    Abstract
    Microorganisms are widespread in all ecosystems and play critical roles in nature. They are major players in global biogeochemical cycles that are fundamental in nutrient cycling. Molecular ecology surveys that investigate the microbial diversity of many different environments have revealed an impressive diversity of microbes in nature and have highlighted our inability to cultivate the vast majority of them in the laboratory. The improvement of our ability to grow uncultivable microbes in laboratory conditions will help us in this challenging task. Standard cultivation methods that have helped to bring to culture many relevant microorganisms in the past century are, however, characterized by limitations which hamper the isolation of novel microbes. For this reason, alternative cultivation strategies have been developed in recent decades which have allowed to expand the collection of environmentally relevant but poorly represented microbial strains. The use of such novel approaches for investigating the microbial diversity of underexplored natural ecosystems, such as sub-tropical mangrove forests, can result in the isolation, in laboratory conditions, of bacterial strains belonging to previously undescribed taxa. Mangroves are unique environments exposed to strong selection forces with respect to other marine environments, including high temperatures, salinity and oligotrophy. I hypothesize that these unique combinations of environmental features have selected microbiomes with unique characteristics. The aim of this PhD research is to explore the bacterial diversity of the Red Sea mangrove ecosystem, by applying an alternative cultivation strategy that uses oligotrophic conditions and long incubation time. I also exploited the diffusion chamber to cultivate bacterial taxa belonging to rarely isolated or even novel genera. This approach allowed me to isolate four novel bacterial taxa. Using 16S rRNA gene sequencing, the isolated bacteria were identified as one novel species and three novel genera belonging to Alpha-proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, and Firmicutes, respectively. These isolates were further characterized and described through genomic, phylogenetic, chemotaxonomic, and phenotypic analysis to describe their ecological significance in the ecosystem of origin (i.e., mangrove sediments). This study reveals that the extreme conditions of the Red Sea mangroves have selected a unique and yet mostly untapped culturable microbiome with great potential for environmental applications.
    Citation
    Sefrji, F. (2020). The Isolation and Characterization of Untapped Diversity of Culturable Bacteria in the Red Sea Mangrove Ecosystem. KAUST Research Repository. https://doi.org/10.25781/KAUST-72P18
    DOI
    10.25781/KAUST-72P18
    ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
    10.25781/KAUST-72P18
    Scopus Count
    Collections
    Biological and Environmental Sciences and Engineering (BESE) Division; Bioscience Program; Dissertations

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