Análise da diversidade de Archaea presente em rúmen de caprinos do semi-árido brasileiro

Abstract

The rumen is a complex biological system, which comprises several types of micro-organisms, including bacteria, archaea, protozoa and fungi involved in the degradation of plant fibers. The rumen microbiota is possibly one of the best studied microbial communities, but studies comprising the diversity of the microbiota of Brazilian goats are scarce. The objective of this work was to study the diversity of Archaea in the rumen of goats Moxotó, by cloning, sequencing and analysis of 16S rRNA gene from total DNA extracted from rumen DNA from the liquid and solid fractions of the rumen of goats Moxotó from the Brazilian semi-arid areas were extracted and used to construct libraries of 16S rRNA gene. The sequences generated were subjected to bioinformatic analyse using a rRNA16S gene specific database. It was observed in both samples only methanogenic archaea of the phylum Euryarcheota, with predominance of the genus Methanobrevibacter, already identified in other studies. We found a group of archaea not yet observed in the rumen, which is related to marine archaea. The composition of the rumen microbiota observed in different studies is varied, which may be due to the animal's diet, methods of DNA extraction and primers. The presence of this new group of archaea shows that the microbiota of Brazilian goats is little known and explored, enabling the future production of inputs for domestic industry