Metagenomic Characterization of The Entire Microbial Community in A Radiochemical Sample

Stefania Brandini, Alessio Valletti, Mariangela Santorsola, Antonio Riglietti, Anna Tolomeo, Onofrio Losito, Vincenzo Dimiccoli, Michele Diaferia, Sabino Liuni, Saverio Vicario, Elda Perlino

The detection of the mixed microbial communities in an environmental sample has represented a hurdle for long time due to the selection imposed by the culturing on specific media and by the minimum number of cells required. Here, we simulated a contamination of a sterile radiochemical by adding a known amount of Staphylococcus epidermidis and we developed a methodology, based on a metagenomic approach, to isolate DNA without a previous selection, from a low starting material and in limited time. The obtained sequences have been further used to characterize the microbial populations present in the sample using a bioinformatics tool.