[Archaeal diversity in sediment of Dunbasitawu salt lake, Xinjiang, China, estimated by 16S rRNA gene sequence analyses].

OBJECTIVE: We surveyed the composition and diversity of uncultured archaea in Xinjiang Dunbasitawu salt Lake sediment. METHODS: Environmental total DNA was directly extracted from the sediment. We constructed clone library of 16S rRNA gene amplified with archaea-specific primers. A total of 59 positive clones were randomly selected from the library and identified by restriction length polymorphism (RFLP) with enzyme Hae III. Clones with the unique RFLP pattern were sequenced, and then by phylogenetic analysis. RESULTS: The clone coverage C value was 89%, and Shannon-Wiener index was 2.69. In total, 21 Operational Taxonomic Units (OTUs) were obtained and affiliated with Euryarchaeota (92%) and Crenarchaeota (8%). The most of clones were affiliated to Halobacterium (24%), Haloarcula (18%), Natronorubrum (14%), and Halorubrum (8%), which belonged to family Halobacteriaceae (88%) with high similarity to that from thalassohaline environment. In addition, 11% of clones had less than 97% similarity with archaea sequences deposited in GenBank database. CONCLUSION: Compared with other similar Hypersaline environments, archaea diversity in Dunbasitawu salt lake was a little lower. The proportion of archara was different, but the composition is consistent. It was implied that some potential new species or lineages maybe exist in Dunbasitawu salt lake.