ORIGINAL RESEARCH published: 07 July 2015 doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2015.00695 Cultivation-dependent and cultivation-independent characterization of hydrocarbon-degrading bacteria in Guaymas Basin sediments Tony Gutierrez1,2*, Jennifer F. Biddle3, Andreas Teske4 and Michael D. Aitken1 1 Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA, 2 School of Life Sciences, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, UK, 3 College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment, University of Delaware, Lewes, DE, USA, 4 Department of Marine Sciences, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA Marine hydrocarbon-degrading bacteria perform a fundamental role in the biodegradation of crude oil and its petrochemical derivatives in coastal and open Edited by: ocean environments. However, there is a paucity of knowledge on the diversity and Peter Dunfield, University of Calgary, Canada function of these organisms in deep-sea sediment. Here we used stable-isotope Reviewed by: probing (SIP), a valuable tool to link the phylogeny and function of targeted microbial Martin Krüger, groups, to investigate polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH)-degrading bacteria under Federal Institute for Geosciences 13 and Natural Resources, Germany aerobic conditions in sediments from Guaymas Basin with uniformly labeled [ C]- 13 Casey R. J. Hubert, phenanthrene (PHE). The dominant sequences in clone libraries constructed from C- Newcastle University, UK enriched bacterial DNA (from PHE enrichments) were identified to belong to the genus *Correspondence: Cycloclasticus. We used quantitative PCR primers targeting the 16S rRNA gene of Tony Gutierrez, School of Life Sciences, Heriot-Watt the SIP-identified Cycloclasticus to determine their abundance in sediment incubations University, Edinburgh EH14 4AS, amended with unlabeled PHE and showed substantial increases in gene abundance Scotland, UK
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