ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Extreme Microbiology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2025.1615879
This article is part of the Research TopicIndustrial Application of Extreme Microbes: Harnessing the Power of Nature's ExtremophilesView all 6 articles
Metagenomic Insights into Microbial Communities and Functional Traits of hot Springs in Guizhou province, China
Provisionally accepted- 1School of Public Health, the key Laboratory of Environmental Pollution Monitoring and Disease Control, Ministry of Education, Guizhou Medical University, Guiyang, China
- 2Guizhou Key Laboratory of Microbiome and Infectious Disease Prevention & Control & School of Basic Medical Science & Institution of One Health Research, Guizhou Medical University, Guiyang, China
- 3Department of Nosocomial Infection Management, The Affiliated Hospital of Guizhou Medical University, Guiyang, China
- 4State Key Laboratory of Microbial Metabolism, Joint International Research Laboratory of Metabolic & Developmental Sciences, School of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China
- 5ASRT, Inc., Atlanta, Georgia, United States
- 6Department of Dermatology, The Affiliated Hospital of Guizhou Medical University, Guiyang, China
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Hot springs were previously believed to have been free of any life form owing to their hostile nature. However, recent studies have determined that hot springs not only have rich microbiota but are also involved in different biogeochemical processes and possess unique characteristics that can be used for a number of biotechnological applications. This study aimed to determine the taxonomic bacterial diversity and functional predictions of 11 hot springs in the Guizhou Province, China. Illumina high-throughput sequencing was used to sequence the V3–V4 region of the 16S rRNA gene of microorganisms in samples collected from 11 hot springs. Software such as Mothur, SILVA ribosomal RNA database, and Quantitative Insights into Microbial Ecology (QIIME) were used for taxonomic and operational taxonomic unit (OTUs) analysis and PICRUST2 for function predictions. Guizhou Baili Rhododendron Hot Spring No.1 (BLDJA) had the highest diversity in terms of species richness, and Jianhe Hot Spring (YAS) had the lowest diversity. At the phylum level, the highest reported phyla included Pseudomonadota, Bacillota, Nitrospirota, Bacteroidota and Actinomycetota, where Pseudomonadota had the highest abundance (92.094%) in Jianhe Hot Spring (YAS) and the lowest (41.238%) in Guizhou Baili Rhododendron Hot Spring No.2 (BLDJB). Bacillota has the highest abundance (39.178%) in Guizhou Baili Rhododendron Hot Spring No.2 (BLDJB), the lowest (0.547%) in Jiutian Hot Spring (SNJT). The highest predicted functions were observed for amino acid metabolism followed by carbohydrates, however, functions for secondary metabolites, vitamins and environmental adoption, which made these habitats a good source of microbes of biotechnological applications. This study is a basic survey of 11 hot springs in Guizhou Province, which provides important materials for exploring the origin and evolution of microorganisms. At the same time, studying these microorganisms is important for understanding the adaptive mechanisms of life under extreme conditions of high temperatures and the possible biotechnological applications of these microbes. An in-depth functional metagenomic and next generation culturomics approach is required to fully understand the microbial flora and their possible biotechnological applications.
Keywords: Thermophilic Microorganism1, Extremophilic Diversity2, Hot Springs3, Microbial functional prediction4, Guizhou Province5, China6
Received: 22 Apr 2025; Accepted: 03 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Chen, Cheng, Rong, Yanyan, LIANG, Irfan, Kang and Cao. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Yingqian Kang, Guizhou Key Laboratory of Microbiome and Infectious Disease Prevention & Control & School of Basic Medical Science & Institution of One Health Research, Guizhou Medical University, Guiyang, China
Yu Cao, Department of Dermatology, The Affiliated Hospital of Guizhou Medical University, Guiyang, China
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