Description:
<jats:title>ABSTRACT</jats:title>
<jats:p>
For cultivation-independent detection of sulfate-reducing prokaryotes (SRPs) an oligonucleotide microarray consisting of 132 16S rRNA gene-targeted oligonucleotide probes (18-mers) having hierarchical and parallel (identical) specificity for the detection of all known lineages of sulfate-reducing prokaryotes (SRP-PhyloChip) was designed and subsequently evaluated with 41 suitable pure cultures of SRPs. The applicability of SRP-PhyloChip for diversity screening of SRPs in environmental and clinical samples was tested by using samples from periodontal tooth pockets and from the chemocline of a hypersaline cyanobacterial mat from Solar Lake (Sinai, Egypt). Consistent with previous studies, SRP-PhyloChip indicated the occurrence of
<jats:italic>Desulfomicrobium</jats:italic>
spp. in the tooth pockets and the presence of
<jats:italic>Desulfonema</jats:italic>
- and
<jats:italic>Desulfomonile</jats:italic>
-like SRPs (together with other SRPs) in the chemocline of the mat. The SRP-PhyloChip results were confirmed by several DNA microarray-independent techniques, including specific PCR amplification, cloning, and sequencing of SRP 16S rRNA genes and the genes encoding the dissimilatory (bi)sulfite reductase (
<jats:italic>dsrAB</jats:italic>
).
</jats:p>