Ribonuclease P RNA gene sequencing as a tool for molecular dereplication of myxobacterial strain collections.

Aims: Efficient strain dereplication is of great value during the generation of bacterial strain collections for industrial screening. We evaluated the utilization of the RNase P RNA gene (rnpB) sequence as a tool for molecular dereplication of myxobacteria.

Methods And Results: 16S rDNA (approx. 1 x 5 kbp) and rnpB (approx. 0 x 3 kbp) sequences were obtained and aligned. From 50 strains, we obtained 20 different sequences for the 16S rDNA and 24 for rnpB. Intersequence similarity was lower for rnpB than for 16S rDNA.

Conclusions: rnpB allows the rapid discrimination of similar strains, with a higher resolution power as compared with 16S rRNA gene sequencing. It not only gives better discrimination, but is also faster and cheaper than 16S rDNA sequencing.

Significance And Impact Of The Study: Myxobacteria isolation and cultivation require time and experience. The application of rnpB sequencing to early myxobacterial strain dereplication may help in the generation of diverse strain libraries of these bacteria.