Rapid fingerprinting of methanogenic communities by high-resolution melting analysis

Characterizing microbial community structure using molecular techniques is becoming a popular approach in studies of waste/wastewater treatment processes. A rapid and robust tool to analyze microbial communities is required for efficient process monitoring and control. In this study, a new community fingerprinting method based on high-resolution melting (HRM) analysis was developed and applied to compare methanogenic community structures of five different anaerobic digesters. The new method produced robust community clustering and ordination results comparable to the results from the commonly used denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) performed in parallel. This method transforms melting peak plots (MPs) of community DNA samples generated by HRM analysis to molecular fingerprints and estimates the relationships between the communities based on the fingerprints. The MP-based fingerprinting would provide a good alternative to monitor variations in microbial community structure especially when handling large sample numbers due to its high-throughput capacity and short analysis time.