Insight into bacterial community profiles of oil shale and sandstone in ordos basin by culture-dependent and culture-independent methods

Abstract

To promote the exploitation of unconventional oil resources by indigenous microorganisms, the bacterial community profiles of oil shale and sandstone in Ordos Basin were investigated using Illumina Miseq sequencing combined with the culture-based method, which was performed and reported in this literature for the first time. A total of 601 operational taxonomic units (OTUs) were obtained from collected samples, the predominant phylum present in all samples was Proteobacteria (76.96%-93.07%). Discriminatory bacterial community profiles existed in those samples by culture-dependent and culture-independent methods, with variations not only in diversity indices but also in the abundance of bacteria at different genus levels. The dominant genera in cultured sandstone sample (SCB), uncultured sandstone sample (SUB), cultured shale sample (YCB), uncultured shale sample (YUB) were Enhydrobacter (71.62%), Acidovorax (42.44%), Pseudomonas (40.13%), Variovorax (70.02%), respectively. Both sample sources and culturing methods were the principal factors affecting the variation, while the communities’ structures were favored primarily by culture-dependent or culture-independent approaches. The high abundance of hydrocarbon degradation-related genes was exhibited in YCB, which reveals a great potential for utilization of the culture-dependent method in shale oil exploitation. This study provided guidance for the exploitation of shale oil and sandstone oil by artificial utilization of indigenous bacteria.

Keywords:

• 16S rRNA sequencing
• bacterial community
• culture-independent
• culture-dependent
• sandstone oil
• shale oil

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article and its supplementary information files.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31000069), and the Key Project on Social Development of Science and Technology in Shaanxi Province (Grant No. 2017ZDXM-SF-105).