Diversity and ability of resistance to ultraviolet radiation of culturable lithophilous bacteria on the north slope of Mount Everest

Abstract:

[Background] The Mount Everest area has extreme environmental conditions such as cold, low temperature and high doses of radiation. There is no report on the study of lithophilous microorganisms on the northern slope of Mount Everest. [Objective] To carry out research on the lithophilous microorganisms on the north slope of Mount Everest, clarify the diversity of culturable bacteria from the lithophilous habitat on the northern slope of Mount Everest, and develop resources of anti-ultraviolet radiation strains on the northern slope of Mount Everest. [Methods] The culturable method, 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis method and ultraviolet radiation were used to study the diversity of culturable lithophilous bacteria on the northern slope of Mount Everest and the ability of resistance to ultraviolet radiation. [Results] A total of 52 lithophilous bacteria were isolated from the lithophilous habitat on the north slope of Mount Everest, which were classified as Actinobacteria, Firmicutes, Proteobacteria, and Bacteroidetes. Actinobacteria and Proteobacteria are the dominant bacteria phyla, Sphingomonas, Arthrobacter, and Streptomyces are the dominant bacterial genera, two strains are potential new species. Two strains with higher resistance to ultraviolet radiation were selected from the isolated and identified strains, namely Bacillus ZFBP4009 and Streptomyces ZFBP1009. [Conclusion] The lithophilous environment on the north slope of Mount Everest contains rich diversity of lithophilous bacteria, and the isolated strains have outstanding the ability of resistance to ultraviolet radiation, which provides data support and strain resources for revealing the distribution characteristics of microorganisms in related extreme environments and the development of extreme environment microbial resources.