Study of the impact of bacteriophages on the microbiota in aquaculture environments using metagenome analysis

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26660170
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Aquatic life science
• Research Institution: Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology
• Principal Investigator: SANO Motohiko 東京海洋大学, 学術研究院, 教授 (00372053)
• Co-Investigator(Renkei-kenkyūsha): HIRONO Ikuo 東京海洋大学, 学術研究院, 教授 (00270926)
• Research Collaborator: SAMESHIMA Mamoru ; NOMURA Yoshinori ; NAKANE Motoyuki
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: 海洋生態 / 海洋微生物 / ファージ / マリンゲノム / メタゲノム

Outline of Final Research Achievements

We tried to show the impact of bacteriophage (phage) to microbiota in shrimp aquaculture using metagenome analysis. Application of metagenome analysis using MiSeq platform to rearing water of shrimp aquaculture pond was studied at the start. The results showed that the analysis could be applied to detect the whole plankton and bacterial population including unculturable ones in the water, which have been remained as a black box. It makes us posible to monitor the dynamics of planktons and bacteria in shrimp aquaculture. To monitor phage dynamics in the environment, we isolated new phages infecting environmental bacteria such as Cytophaga-Flavobacterium group bacteria and deposited the genome sequences. Further we tried to detect phage DNA in the pond water using metagenome analysis, but we obtained a small amount of bacteriophage DNAs and the most of the sequences were remained unknown in reference virus databases. The virus sequences obtained may be of the virus infecting planktons.

Free Research Field

水族病理学