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Texto: Environmental pollution can inflict biological damage to organisms affecting their life histories. Here, we use the Eastern treefrogs (Hyla orientalis) as study model , to examine the consequences that living ir areas contaminated by radioactive material from the Chernobyl accident, occurred in 1986, had on the diversity and composition of gut microbiome. We collected 80 individuals in five localities inside the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone during the spring 2017, one locality under high radiation levels (> 11 microSv/h), two on mid radiation (2-4 microSv/h) , and two on low radiation levels (< 0.11 microSv/h). The long-term exposure to ionizing radiation on Chernobyl can give us information about negative effects of the radiation, as well as insights into putative adaptation patterns in these organisms. The duodenum of the frogs was preserved for DNA extraction in situ. The region between 515F and 806R of the 16S rRNA was targeted andamplified through PCR. Specific Illumina barcodes i5 and i7 were used to make the Illumina libraries. The resulted amplicons were sequenced on an Illumina Miseq at the Science for Life laboratory (Uppsala University, Sweden) to estimate total microbial diversity. The sequencing resulted in 1382 filtered Operational Taxonomic Units (OUTs). The OTUs were clustered at 97% of identity and showed a high percentage of Proteobacteria, Firmicutes, and unassigned bacteria. The composition of the gut microbiome in Hyla orientalis differed between radioactive contamination levels. Further studies are needed to fully understand the implications of these differences, as well as their possible effects on organismal fitness. |
