Weiss, A. and Scheller, F. and Oggenfuss, M. and Walsh, Fiona and Frey, Jurg E. and Drissner, D. and Schmidt, H. (2016) Analysis of the bacterial epiphytic microbiota of oak leaf lettuce with 16S ribosomal RNA gene analysis. Journal of Microbiology, Biotechnology and Food Sciences, 5 (3). pp. 271-276. ISSN 1338-5178

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Abstract

The leaf microbiota has major influences on the quality of ready-to-eat lettuce. While studies investigating the epi- and endophytic microbiota of lettuce have been published, no protocols focusing only on the epiphytic microbiota exist. As the epiphytic microbiota may be especially influenced by technological steps in the production of ready-to-eat lettuce, an in-depth knowledge of these microorganisms is essential with regard to consumer safety and spoilage. Currently it is not clear to what extent results gained from single samples are representative of the community composition. A technique for the separation of bacterial cells from the leaf surface was applied to green oak leaf lettuce. The bacterial diversity was analysed in triplicate with high throughput Roche 454 sequencing of prokaryotic 16S rRNA genes to analyse the intra-sample variation. Sequence analysis revealed members of the phyla Acidobacteria, Actinobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Firmicutes, Gemmatimonadetes, Proteobacteria and Verrucomicrobia, and of the candidate division WYO. The ten most abundant proteobacterial genera in all three samples were Alkanindiges (24.6%), Pseudomonas (11.3%), Sphingomonas (8.6%), Janthinobacterium (8.3%), Acinetobacter (4.3%), Polaromonas (1.3%), Erwinia (1.1%), and Methylobacterium (1.1%). The genera Pedobacter (2.5%) and Hymenobacter (1.4%) dominated the phylum Bacteroidetes. The intra-sample variation was less than 0.7% for seven of these most abundant genera with the exception of Pseudomonas, Janthinobacterium and Alkanindiges, where larger standard deviations were obtained. This low intra-sample variation demonstrates that the established technique based on oak leaf lettuce is suitable for the culture-independent analysis of the epiphytic bacterial microbiota of produce.

Item Type:	Article
Keywords:	Oak leaf lettuce; microbiota; biodiversity; next generation sequencing; Alkanindiges;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Science and Engineering > Biology
Item ID:	7472
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.15414/jmbfs.2015/16.5.3.271-276
Depositing User:	Fiona Walsh
Date Deposited:	27 Sep 2016 15:39
Journal or Publication Title:	Journal of Microbiology, Biotechnology and Food Sciences
Publisher:	Slovak University of Agriculture in Nitra, Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Sciences
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	http://www.jmbfs.org/
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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