Algae–bacteria association inferred by 16S rDNA similarity in established microalgae cultures

Forty cultivable, visually distinct bacterial cultures were isolated from four Baltic microalgal cultures Chlorella pyrenoidosa, Scenedesmus obliquus, Isochrysis sp., and Nitzschia microcephala, which have been maintained for several years in the laboratory. Bacterial isolates were characterized with respect to morphology, antibiotic susceptibility, and 16S ribosomal DNA sequence. A total of 17 unique bacterial strains, almost all belonging to one of three families, Rhodobacteraceae, Rhizobiaceae, and Erythrobacteraceae, were subsequently isolated. The majority of isolated bacteria belong to Rhodobacteraceae. Literature review revealed that close relatives of the bacteria isolated in this study are not only often found in marine environments associated with algae, but also in lakes, sediments, and soil. Some of them had been shown to interact with organisms in their surroundings. A Basic Local Alignment Search Tool study indicated that especially bacteria isolated from the Isochrysis sp. culture were highly similar to microalgae-associated bacteria. Two of those isolates, I1 and I6, belong to the Cytophaga-Flavobacterium-Bacteroides phylum, members of which are known to occur in close communities with microalgae. An UniFrac analysis revealed that the bacterial community of Isochrysis sp. significantly differs from the other three communities.