Using metagenomics tool to evaluate the enrichment efficiency of methanogens in marine sediment in Truong Sa archipelage, Khanh Hoa province, Vietnam

Department of Biotechnology, Joint Vietnam-Russia Tropical Science and Technology Research Center, 63 Nguyen Van Huyen Str., Vietnam

^* Corresponding author: hongdt1009@gmail.com

Abstract

Methanogens (archaea bacteria that produce methan) play an important role in the anaerobic digestion of organic waste, however, in marine environment, the low density of methanogens makes anaerobic digestion very slow. In this study, we used methagenomics tool to evaluate the enrichment efficiency of methanogens communities in marine sediments as a basis for building a anaerobic microbial formulation to treat organic waste in marine environment. The results of determination of methanogen density by MPN method have shown that methanogen has been accumulated with higher density (up to 3.2.10⁷ MNP/ml) through 2 times of enrichment in artificial seawater with CH₃COONa 10 mM substrate. In addition, metagenomics data have also shown a decrease in the number of archaea species through each enrichment, indicating that methanogenic species have gradually dominated the microbial community. This is the first study on using metagnenomics tools to evaluate the enrichment of methanogens in marine sediment samples in Truong Sa archipelago, Vietnam. Metagenomics data help provide more reliable evidence in microbial studies, especially in obligate anaerobes such as methanogens.