The Egyptian Red Sea coastal microbiome: A study revealing differential microbial responses to diverse anthropogenic pollutants.

The Red Sea is considered one of the youngest oceanic systems, with unique physical, geochemical and biological characteristics. Tourism, industrialization, extensive fishing, oil processing and shipping are extensive sources of pollution in the Red Sea. We analyzed the geochemical characteristics and microbial community of sediments along the Egyptian coast of the Red Sea. Our sites mainly included 1) four ports used for shipping aluminum, ilmenite and phosphate; 2) a site previously reported to have suffered extensive oil spills; and 3) a site impacted by tourism. Two major datasets for the sediment of ten Red Sea coastal sites were generated; i) a chemical dataset included measurements of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen and sulfur, metals and selected semi-volatile oil; and ii) a 16S rRNA Pyrotags bacterial metagenomic dataset. Based on the taxonomic assignments of the 16S rRNA Pyrotags to major bacterial groups, we report 30 taxa constituting an Egyptian Red Sea Coastal Microbiome. Bacteria that degrade hydrocarbons were predominant in the majority of the sites, particularly in two ports where they reached up to 76% of the total identified genera. In contrast, sulfate-reducing and sulfate-oxidizing bacteria dominated two lakes at the expense of other hydrocarbon metabolizers. Despite the reported "Egyptian Red Sea Coastal Microbiome," sites with similar anthropogenic pollutants showed unique microbial community abundances. This suggests that the abundance of a specific bacterial community is an evolutionary mechanism induced in response to selected anthropogenic pollutants.

Egypt's Red Sea coast: phylogenetic analysis of cultured microbial consortia in industrialized sites.

The Red Sea possesses a unique geography, and its shores are rich in mangrove, macro-algal and coral reef ecosystems. Various sources of pollution affect Red Sea biota, including microbial life. We assessed the effects of industrialization on microbes along the Egyptian Red Sea coast at eight coastal sites and two lakes. The bacterial communities of sediment samples were analyzed using bacterial 16S rDNA pyrosequencing of V6-V4 hypervariable regions. The taxonomic assignment of 131,402 significant reads to major bacterial taxa revealed five main bacterial phyla dominating the sampled sites: Proteobacteria (68%), Firmicutes (13%), Fusobacteria (12%), Bacteriodetes (6%), and Spirochetes (0.03%). Further analysis revealed distinct bacterial consortia that primarily included (1) marine Vibrio spp.-suggesting a "marine Vibrio phenomenon"; (2) potential human pathogens; and (3) oil-degrading bacteria. We discuss two divergent microbial consortia that were sampled from Solar Lake West near Taba/Eilat and Saline Lake in Ras Muhammad; these consortia contained the highest abundance of human pathogens and no pathogens, respectively. Our results draw attention to the effects of industrialization on the Red Sea and suggest the need for further analysis to overcome the hazardous effects observed at the impacted sites.

Unique prokaryotic consortia in geochemically distinct sediments from Red Sea Atlantis II and discovery deep brine pools.

The seafloor is a unique environment, which allows insights into how geochemical processes affect the diversity of biological life. Among its diverse ecosystems are deep-sea brine pools - water bodies characterized by a unique combination of extreme conditions. The 'polyextremophiles' that constitute the microbial assemblage of these deep hot brines have not been comprehensively studied. We report a comparative taxonomic analysis of the prokaryotic communities of the sediments directly below the Red Sea brine pools, namely, Atlantis II, Discovery, Chain Deep, and an adjacent brine-influenced site. Analyses of sediment samples and high-throughput pyrosequencing of PCR-amplified environmental 16S ribosomal RNA genes (16S rDNA) revealed that one sulfur (S)-rich Atlantis II and one nitrogen (N)-rich Discovery Deep section contained distinct microbial populations that differed from those found in the other sediment samples examined. Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, Cyanobacteria, Deferribacteres, and Euryarchaeota were the most abundant bacterial and archaeal phyla in both the S- and N-rich sections. Relative abundance-based hierarchical clustering of the 16S rDNA pyrotags assigned to major taxonomic groups allowed us to categorize the archaeal and bacterial communities into three major and distinct groups; group I was unique to the S-rich Atlantis II section (ATII-1), group II was characteristic for the N-rich Discovery sample (DD-1), and group III reflected the composition of the remaining sediments. Many of the groups detected in the S-rich Atlantis II section are likely to play a dominant role in the cycling of methane and sulfur due to their phylogenetic affiliations with bacteria and archaea involved in anaerobic methane oxidation and sulfate reduction.