Microbial community analysis of the hypersaline water of the Dead Sea using high‐throughput amplicon sequencing

Amplicon sequencing using next‐generation technology (bTEFAP (®)) has been utilized in describing the diversity of Dead Sea microbiota. The investigated area is a well‐known salt lake in the western part of Jordan found in the lowest geographical location in the world (more than 420 m below sea level) and characterized by extreme salinity (approximately, 34%) in addition to other extreme conditions (low pH, unique ionic composition different from sea water). DNA was extracted from Dead Sea water. A total of 314,310 small subunit RNA (SSU rRNA) sequences were parsed, and 288,452 sequences were then clustered. For alpha diversity analysis, sample was rarefied to 3,000 sequences. The Shannon–Wiener index curve plot reached a plateau at approximately 3,000 sequences indicating that sequencing depth was sufficient to capture the full scope of microbial diversity. Archaea was found to be dominating the sequences (52%), whereas Bacteria constitute 45% of the sequences. Altogether, prokaryotic sequences (which constitute 97% of all sequences) were found to predominate. The findings expand on previous studies by using high‐throughput amplicon sequencing to describe the microbial community in an environment which in recent years has been shown to hide some interesting diversity.