Antibiotic Resistance in Ancient Permafrost Microbial Communities
Permafrost, or permanently frozen soil, is found in polar regions and underlies over 25% of the Earth's terrestrial surface. Despite subzero temperatures, permafrost hosts a diversity of microbial life. Permafrost is an important study system because (1) thawing permafrost contributes to climat...
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California State University, Northridge
2019
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ftcalifstateuniv:oai:scholarworks:tb09j837t 2024-09-30T14:31:36+00:00 Antibiotic Resistance in Ancient Permafrost Microbial Communities Alcaraz, Cristina Mackelprang, Rachel Bermudes, David Ruiz Rueda, Cristian 2019-08-23 http://hdl.handle.net/10211.3/212981 English eng California State University, Northridge Biology http://hdl.handle.net/10211.3/212981 Dissertations Academic -- CSUN -- Biology holocene colistin pleistocene exobiology active layer antibiotic resistance functional metagenomics permafrost Masters Thesis 2019 ftcalifstateuniv 2024-09-10T17:06:19Z Permafrost, or permanently frozen soil, is found in polar regions and underlies over 25% of the Earth's terrestrial surface. Despite subzero temperatures, permafrost hosts a diversity of microbial life. Permafrost is an important study system because (1) thawing permafrost contributes to climate change and (2) permafrost is an analog for extraterrestrial subzero environments. Permafrost carries approximately 1,400 gigatons of carbon. Global warming is escalating temperatures in the Arctic causing wide-spread permafrost thaw, making previously frozen carbon available for microbial decomposition. Microbes release carbon stores into the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide and methane through respiration. Permafrost is also relevant to the field of exobiology because our solar system contains planets, moons and asteroids with analogous frozen environments. Permafrost serves as a correlative substrate in which to study some of the survival mechanisms life on extraterrestrial bodies (if it exists) must employ in order to survive extreme and subzero environments. To understand microbial community survival, we focus on a particularly important aspect of community function--antibiotic resistance. Antibiotic resistance occurs naturally among soil dwelling microbes. Antibiotic resistance genes (resistomes) are involved in community signaling and environmental sensing and play a role in competition and defense interactions. To identify antibiotic resistance genes in ancient bacterial communities that have never been exposed to synthetic antibiotics, we employ functional metagenomics. In this approach, we extract DNA directly from overlying active layer, Holocene aged permafrost frozen for 5,000 years (kyr) and Pleistocene permafrost frozen for 19kyr and clone it into a plasmid vector. A metagenomic library is thus constructed and expressed in an E. coli surrogate host. We screen for antibiotic resistance, pool resistant colonies, and sequence the antibiotic resistance genes using high-throughput next-generation ... Master Thesis Arctic Climate change Global warming permafrost Scholarworks from California State University Arctic |
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Scholarworks from California State University |
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Dissertations Academic -- CSUN -- Biology holocene colistin pleistocene exobiology active layer antibiotic resistance functional metagenomics permafrost |
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Dissertations Academic -- CSUN -- Biology holocene colistin pleistocene exobiology active layer antibiotic resistance functional metagenomics permafrost Alcaraz, Cristina Antibiotic Resistance in Ancient Permafrost Microbial Communities |
topic_facet |
Dissertations Academic -- CSUN -- Biology holocene colistin pleistocene exobiology active layer antibiotic resistance functional metagenomics permafrost |
description |
Permafrost, or permanently frozen soil, is found in polar regions and underlies over 25% of the Earth's terrestrial surface. Despite subzero temperatures, permafrost hosts a diversity of microbial life. Permafrost is an important study system because (1) thawing permafrost contributes to climate change and (2) permafrost is an analog for extraterrestrial subzero environments. Permafrost carries approximately 1,400 gigatons of carbon. Global warming is escalating temperatures in the Arctic causing wide-spread permafrost thaw, making previously frozen carbon available for microbial decomposition. Microbes release carbon stores into the atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide and methane through respiration. Permafrost is also relevant to the field of exobiology because our solar system contains planets, moons and asteroids with analogous frozen environments. Permafrost serves as a correlative substrate in which to study some of the survival mechanisms life on extraterrestrial bodies (if it exists) must employ in order to survive extreme and subzero environments. To understand microbial community survival, we focus on a particularly important aspect of community function--antibiotic resistance. Antibiotic resistance occurs naturally among soil dwelling microbes. Antibiotic resistance genes (resistomes) are involved in community signaling and environmental sensing and play a role in competition and defense interactions. To identify antibiotic resistance genes in ancient bacterial communities that have never been exposed to synthetic antibiotics, we employ functional metagenomics. In this approach, we extract DNA directly from overlying active layer, Holocene aged permafrost frozen for 5,000 years (kyr) and Pleistocene permafrost frozen for 19kyr and clone it into a plasmid vector. A metagenomic library is thus constructed and expressed in an E. coli surrogate host. We screen for antibiotic resistance, pool resistant colonies, and sequence the antibiotic resistance genes using high-throughput next-generation ... |
author2 |
Mackelprang, Rachel Bermudes, David Ruiz Rueda, Cristian |
format |
Master Thesis |
author |
Alcaraz, Cristina |
author_facet |
Alcaraz, Cristina |
author_sort |
Alcaraz, Cristina |
title |
Antibiotic Resistance in Ancient Permafrost Microbial Communities |
title_short |
Antibiotic Resistance in Ancient Permafrost Microbial Communities |
title_full |
Antibiotic Resistance in Ancient Permafrost Microbial Communities |
title_fullStr |
Antibiotic Resistance in Ancient Permafrost Microbial Communities |
title_full_unstemmed |
Antibiotic Resistance in Ancient Permafrost Microbial Communities |
title_sort |
antibiotic resistance in ancient permafrost microbial communities |
publisher |
California State University, Northridge |
publishDate |
2019 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/10211.3/212981 |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic Climate change Global warming permafrost |
genre_facet |
Arctic Climate change Global warming permafrost |
op_relation |
http://hdl.handle.net/10211.3/212981 |
_version_ |
1811636063216599040 |