Sponge-Specific Unknown Bacterial Groups Detected in Marine Sponges Collected from Korea Through Barcoded Pyrosequencing

The bacterial diversity of 10 marine sponges belonging to the species Cliona celata, an unidentified Cliona species, Haliclona cinerea, Halichondria okadai, Hymeniacidon sinapium, Lissodendoryx isodictyalis, Penares incrustans, Spirastrella abata, and Spirastrella panis collected from Jeju Island and Chuja Island was investigated using amplicon pyrosequencing of the 16S rRNA genes. The microbial diversity of these sponges has as of yet rarely or never been investigated. All sponges, except Cliona celata, Lissodendoryx isodictyalis, and Penares incrustans, showed simple bacterial diversity, in which one or two bacterial OTUs occupied more than 50% of the pyrosequencing reads and their OTU rank abundance curves saturated quickly. Most of the predominant OTUs belonged to Alpha-, Beta-, or Gammaproteobacteria. Some of the OTUs from the sponges with low diversity were distantly (88%~89%) or moderately (93%~97%) related to known sequences in the GenBank nucleotide database. Phylogenetic analysis showed that many of the representative sequences of the OTUs were related to the sequences originating from sponges and corals, and formed sponge-specific or -related clades. The marine sponges investigated herein harbored unexplored bacterial diversity, and further studies should be done to understand the microbes present in sponges.