BioProject

Dicathais orbita is a marine mollusc well known for the production of anticancer compounds that are precursors to Tyrian purple. More...

Dicathais orbita is a marine mollusc well known for the production of anticancer compounds that are precursors to Tyrian purple. This study aimed to assess the full diversity of bacteria associated with the Tyrian purple producing hypobranchial gland and to identify bacteria specifically associated with the purple producing gland by comparing with the foot tissues using a high-throughput sequencing approach. The total genomic DNA was extracted from the hypobranchial gland and foot of D. orbita for high-throughput sequencing targeting the variable region V1-V3 of 16S rRNA bacterial gene. 16S rRNA bacterial sequences were processed by using combinations of QIIME and MEGAN software. The metagenome analysis revealed highly diverse bacterial assemblage associated with the hypobranchial gland and foot tissues of D. orbita. The most dominant bacteria phylum in the metagenome data set was Proteobacteria followed by Tenericutes, Spirochaetes and Bacteroidetes. Our result has also provided that larger numbers of bacterial taxa were present in the foot than the hypobranchial gland of D. orbita. This study also revealed the high abundance of Vibrio spp. in the Tyrian purple producing gland of a muricid mollusc. It also reports the presence of unique bacterial communities which shows indole production, bromoperoxidase and brominated secondary metabolites in the biosynthetic gland. This study reveals the full diversity of bacteria associated with the Tyrian purple producing gland of a marine muricids and also helped in establishing the potential role of bacteria in the biosynthesis of Tyrian purple. Less...