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ABSTRACT:
Soil is the richest ecosystem there is, as far as the diversity and populations of microorganisms is concerned. It is known that there could be over ten billion microbes per gram of soil, making soil the ideal ecosystem for mining different genes, ORFs etc. Microbial Diversity forms the lifeline of an ecosystem, interfering, regulating and participating in the biogeochemical activities therein. The present study was conducted to identify key extremophilic species residing in the coal mines of Dhanbad plateau in Bihar, India. Dhanbad plateau soil presents a unique niche, rich in coal and minerals. Soil from the coal mines was analysed through metagenomic as well as culture-dependent approach to enlist the micro-organisms native to the place. The culturable fraction lead to the identification of Klebsiella spp, Enterobacteriaceae, Serratia marcescens, and Providencia spp
KEYWORDS: Microbial Diversity, Molecular techniques, 16S rRNA genes, Dhanbad Plateau, Metagenomics.
INTRODUCTION:
The existence of life on the planet Earth dates to 4.1 billion years ago with the evidences of prokaryotic life to 3.5 billion years back in time1. During this vast travel through the time life forms has improved, but from the origin of first prokaryotic cell to the domination of gigantic reptiles of Jurassic era and from the development of ganglion to the network of scintillating neurons in human mind, one thing is common and constant. They are the tiny invisible creatures sharing the journey of time with all the life forms present on the Earth with incredible potential and sustainability - 'Microorganisms'.
Microorganisms are found on every inch of the planet, from the cold Arctic Circle to the dry desert of Sahara; from the rainforests of amazon to the deep world of Indian Ocean. The morphology and genetic ability to sustain in almost every environment makes bacterial population one of the most diverse population ever inhibit the planet2.
Per an estimation, 50% total biomass load of the planet is made up of microbial cells3. There are more number of bacteria (1029) estimated in the ocean then the stars in the Universe (1021). However, the critical point about our knowledge of microbial diversity is that till date we have information about only 1% of microbial species only round about 3,100 in an estimated number of 300,000 to 1 million...