ABSTRACT Anthropogenic activity, such as accidental oil spills, are typical sources of urban mangrove pollution that may affect mangrove bacterial communities as well as their mobile genetic elements. To evaluate remediation strategies, we followed over the time the effects of a petroleum hydrocarbon degrading consortium inoculated on mangrove tree Avicennia schaueriana against artificial petroleum contamination in a phytoremediation greenhouse experiment. Interestingly, despite plant protection due to the inoculation, denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis of the bacterial 16S rRNA gene fragments amplified from the total community DNA indicated that the different treatments did not significantly affect the bacterial community composition. However, while the bacterial community was rather stable, pronounced shifts were observed in the abundance of bacteria carrying plasmids. A PCR-Southern blot hybridization analysis indicated an increase in the abundance of IncP-9 catabolic plasmids. Denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis of naphthalene dioxygenase (ndo) genes amplified from cDNA (RNA) indicated the dominance of a specific ndo gene in the inoculated petroleum amendment treatment. The petroleum hydrocarbon degrading consortium characterization indicated the prevalence of bacteria assigned to Pseudomonas spp., Comamonas spp. and Ochrobactrum spp. IncP-9 plasmids were detected for the first time in Comamonas sp. and Ochrobactrum spp., which is a novelty of this study.

Nesse trabalho descrevemos um protocolo otimizado para extração simultânea de DNA e RNA de solo. O tratamento das amostras de solo com etanol e posterior agitação com partículas foi uma estratégia bem sucedida para lise das células sem degradação significativa dos ácidos nucléicos, resultando em bom rendimento de DNA e RNA íntegros. O RNA transcrito pode ser amplificado com iniciadores com alvo no fragmento do gene da glutamina sintetase (glnA). Os fragmentos 16S rDNA, tanto do DNA como do cDNA, foram amplificados e analisados por DGGE. O método foi aplicado para amostras de solo e rizosfera (morango e canola). Dois outros protocolos para extração de ácidos nucléicos de solo foram aplicados para o mesmo lote de amostras, de forma a comparar os métodos quanto à eficiência e reprodutibilidade. Os perfis de DGGE mostraram não haver diferença relevante nos padrões obtidos. O método descrito é apropriado para o processamento rápido de muitas amostras e, conseqüentemente, adequado para estudos ecológicos.

In this work we report an optimized protocol for simultaneous extraction of DNA and RNA from soil matrices. Treatment of soil matrices with ethanol followed by bead-beating worked as a successful strategy to lyse the cells without considerable degradation of nucleic acids, resulting in DNA and RNA of good yield and integrity. The reverse transcribed RNA could be amplified with primers targeting a glutamine synthetase (glnA) gene fragment. From both DNA and cDNA, 16S rDNA fragments were amplified and analyzed by Denaturing Gradient Gel Electrophoresis (DGGE). The method was applied to soil and rhizosphere (strawberry and oilseed rape) samples. Two other protocols for the extraction of nucleic acids from soil were applied to the same set of samples in order to compare the methods in terms of efficiency and reproducibility. The DGGE profiles indicated no relevant differences between the patterns obtained. The method described here is suitable for rapid processing of many samples and therefore appropriate for ecological studies.