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Prokaryotic diversity and biogeochemical characteristics of field living and laboratory cultured stromatolites from the hypersaline Laguna Interna, Salar de Atacama (Chile)

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Abstract

Stromatolites are organo-sedimentary structures found principally in seas and saline lakes that contain sheets of sediments and minerals formed by layers of microbial communities, which trap sediments and induce the precipitation of minerals.

A living stromatolite from the alkaline Laguna Interna in the Salar de Atacama was collected and one of the fragments was deposited in an experimental aquarium for 18 months. We used Illumina sequencing of PCR-amplified V4 regions of 16S rRNA genes from total extracted DNA to identify the microbial populations. The chemical structure was studied using X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) and bench chemical methods. We found that members belonging to the Proteobacteria, Planctomycetes, Chloroflexi and Bacteroidetes phyla dominated the bacterial communities of the living and aquarium cultured samples. The potential metabolic functionality of the prokaryotic community reveals that sulfur, nitrogen, methane and carbon fixation metabolism functions are present in the samples. This study is the first to provide new insights into the prokaryotic community composition from this unusual aquatic desert site. Further studies will be helpful to obtain a better understanding of the biotic and abiotic mechanisms residing in stromatolites from Laguna Interna, as well as to have better knowledge about the formation of these biosignatures.

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Acknowledgements

We are very grateful to the Comunidad Atacameña de Peine for granting us access to the sampling site. We thank all the members from the Laboratorio de Biotecnología, Departamento de Bioquímica y Biología Molecular from the Universidad de Chile for their interesting discussions. We also thank Mr. Andrés Ibañez, from the Laboratorio de Cristalografía, Departamento de Física, Facultad de Ciencias Físicas y Matemáticas, Universidad de Chile for his help in the XRD analyses. This work was supported by FONDEF [CA13I10019 and IT16M10002] (ANID), Chile.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratorio de Microbiología y Biotecnología, Departamento de Bioquímica y Biología Molecular, Facultad de Ciencias Químicas y Farmacéuticas, Universidad de Chile, Santos Dumont #964, Independencia, Santiago, Chile

    Jorge R. Osman, Pabla Viedma & Davor Cotoras

  2. Instituto de Geología Económica Aplicada (GEA), Universidad de Concepción, Concepción, Chile

    Jorge R. Osman

  3. Laboratorio de Química de Suelos, Departamento de Química Inorgánica y Analítica, Facultad de Ciencias Químicas y Farmacéuticas, Universidad de Chile, Sergio Livingstone 1007, Independencia, Santiago, Chile

    Jorge Mendoza

  4. Departamento de Bioquímica, Instituto de Química, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brasil

    Gustavo Fernandes

  5. Institute for Integrative Biology of the Cell (I2BC), CEA, CNRS, Université Paris-Saclay Campus CNRS, Bâtiment 21, Avenue de la Terasse, 91190, Gif-sur-Yvette, France

    Michael S. DuBow

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Osman, J.R., Viedma, P., Mendoza, J. et al. Prokaryotic diversity and biogeochemical characteristics of field living and laboratory cultured stromatolites from the hypersaline Laguna Interna, Salar de Atacama (Chile). Extremophiles 25, 327–342 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00792-021-01232-1

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