Microbial flora in the deepest sea mud of the Mariana Trench

Abstract

In an attempt to characterize the microbial flora on the deepest sea floor, we isolated thousands of microbes from a mud sample collected from the Mariana Trench. The microbial flora found at a depth of 10897 m was composed of actinomycetes, fungi, non-extremophilic bacteria, and various extremophilic bacteria such as alkaliphiles, thermophiles, and psychrophiles. Phylogenetic analysis of Mariana isolates based on 16S rDNA sequences revealed that a wide range of taxa were represented.