The yak has great potential as an “energy-saving” animal as many

The yak has great potential as an “energy-saving” animal as many researchers around the world aim to find “low carbon” livestock. The identification of inhibitors of methanogenesis is currently being explored. However, the successful use learn more of these agents is dependant upon having a better understanding of the hydrogenotrophic microbial community in the rumen, which must be promoted in the absence of the methanogenic archaea for production benefits to occur. As a potential “low carbon” animal, yaks are adapted to a cold and high altitude environment and are reported to produce less methane than cattle per unit body weight [9]. Thus, the yak, which is well

adapted to its environment, may harbor a rumen methanogen

population that produces less methane than cattle. Therefore, it is necessary to study the hydrogenotrophic microbial community by comparing the rumen methanogen diversity of yaks and cattle. The phylogenetic analysis of bacterial diversity in yak has been studied previously [11, 12], whereas the methanogen diversity in yak has yet to be investigated. This study aims to generate new knowledge pertaining to the rumen methanogens of the yak and will contribute to the identification of the microbiology that constitutes a low-methane emitting ruminant animal. To our knowledge, this is the first investigation on the diversity of rumen methanogens from the yak. Results Sequence similarity analysis In the yak 16S rRNA gene clone library, a total of 227 clones were examined and 18 clones were identified as chimeras and excluded from further analyses. The remaining 209

clones revealed 134 Selleckchem EPZ5676 unique Akt inhibitor sequences (Table 1). Of these, 109 sequences belonged to the Thermoplasmatales-affiliated Lineage C (TALC), with only 85.5% to 89.2% identity to Methanomassiliicoccus luminyensis. The remaining 25 sequences were related to archaeal taxa from the orders Methanobacteriales, Methanomicrobiales and Methanosarcinales. Glutathione peroxidase Of these 25 sequences, 20 belonged within the order Methanobacteriales and were broken down as follows: 12 sequences were 97.0% to 98.3% related to Methanobrevibacter millerae, four sequences had 96.7% to 98.9% identity to Methanobrevibacter ruminantium, and four sequences were 96.2% to 97.5% related to Methanobrevibacter smithii. Only one sequence was related to methanogens from the order Methanomicrobiales, with 99.8% identity to Methanomicrobium mobile, whereas four sequences belonged to the order Methanosarcinales with only 91.7% to 92.9% identity to Methanimicrococcus blatticola. Table 1 Similarity values of rumen methanogens from yak and cattle from Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, China Yak Cattle 16S Sequence Clonesa OTU# Nearest Taxon % Seq ID 16S Sequence Clonesa OTU# Nearest Taxon % Seq ID QTPYAK1 5 74 Mms. luminyensis 88.2 QTPC1 2 82 Mbb. millerae 98.6 QTPYAK2 1 74 Mms. luminyensis 88.1 QTPC2 1 82 Mbb.

Comments are closed.