RESUMO
Sulfate-reducing prokaryotes (SRP) and sulfur-oxidizing prokaryotes (SOP) play vital roles in the sulfur cycle. The SRP community was used to represent a microbial community with high richness and diversity. The 454 pyrosequencing, Illumina high-throughput sequencing, and traditional clone library methods that target the dissimilatory sulfite reductase ß subunit gene (dsrB), which encodes a key enzyme in the sulfate reduction pathway, were used to compare the differences in SRP community characteristics. Comparative analyses suggested that Illumina high-throughput sequencing was a more appropriate method for SRP (high richness and diversity) community studies. The SOP soxB gene (~750 bp) was used as a representative of the long-sequence segment. The 454 pyrosequencing and Illumina high-throughput sequencing methods were used to compare the differences in SOP community characteristics. The results revealed that 454 pyrosequencing did not reflect its advantage of a longer read length; whereas, the Illumina high-throughput sequencing with more numerous and shorter sequence reads was more suitable when the soxB gene was used to investigate the community composition and diversity of SOP.