Exploring the Hydrocarbon Degradation Potential of Indigenous Bacteria using 16S Sequencing Approach

Abstract

Total petroleum hydrocarbon (TPH) contamination is a serious problem, as it causes environmental damage and negative effects on human health. In most environments, microbial communities play a critical role in ecosystem functioning. A better understanding of the microbiome profile would increase the ability to manipulate this diversity in order to improve environmental quality through remediation. This paper provides the determination of the correlation between the relative abundance of bacteria with the physicochemical factors and total petroleum hydrocarbon. Metagenomic data were obtained by next-generation sequencing of 16s rRNA V3-V4 region as it is available in NCBI with accession number SR17068254-SRR17068293. Correlation between the relative abundance of bacteria with the physicochemical factors and total petroleum hydrocarbon were obtained by performing the coefficient of rank test on R Studio (v.4.1.3). The results of the correlation test at the phylum level showed that the relative abundance of the Aminicenantes, Chloroflexi, Firmicutes, and Synergistetes groups had a significant strong positive correlation to soil temperature. This is an indication that these group of bacteria can withstand high temperature and extreme environment. Meanwhile, at the class level, Deltaproteobacteria showed a strong positive correlation to the content of TPH. This is an indication that Deltaproteobacteria potentially comprised of many bacteria that has hydrocarbon degradation ability (p value < 0.05).