Study of fecal bacterial diversity in Yunnan snub-nosed monkey (<i>Rhinopithecus bieti</i>) using phylogenetic analysis of cloned 16S rRNA gene sequences

Abstract

The bacterial diversity in fecal samples from Yunnan snub-nosed monkey (Rhinopithecus bieti) was investigated by constructed 16S rRNA gene clone library and restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis. As a result, a total of 156 representative clones for each profile, comprising nearly full length sequences (with a mean length of 1.5 kb) were sequenced and submitted to an on-line similarity search and neighbor-joining phylogenetic analysis. Using the criterion of 97%, these 16S rRNA gene sequences were binned in 129 OTUs. 11 sequences whose similarity is 97% were affiliated to the cultured bacteria and accounted for 7.05% of the total clones. For 23 sequences (14.74%), the similarity with the database was in the range of 89 - 97%. The remaining 122 sequences (78.21%) were uncultured and unidentified bacteria. Based on the phylogenetic analysis, the fecal bacteria of R. bieti distributed mainly in 6 bacteriophyta of Firmicutes, Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, Fibrobacteres, Spirochaetes and Actinobacteria, and belonged to 17 genera. Besides, there were a large number of uncultured and unidentified bacteria. These results illustrate the fecal bacteria diversity of R. bieti.

Key Words: Rhinopithecus bieti, fecal bacterial diversity, 16S rRNA gene, phylogenetic analysis.