Phylogenetic diversity analysis of chitinase gene in deep-sea sediments from the Bashi Channel in the northern South China Sea

Marine microbe is an important source of novel chitinase gene. The chitinase gene library of the deep-sea surface sediments of the Bashi Channel in the northern South China Sea was constructed，and 114 amino acid sequences of chitinase were obtained，which were divided into 54 operational taxonomic units（OTUs）based on 0.3 distance. The Chao1 of richness index was 159.86，and the Shannon and Simpson of diversity index were 3.39 and 0.06，respectively. By BLAST analysis in GenBank，the conservative sites of chitinase gene were found in all 54 OTU representative sequences. The highest similarity was 97%，and the lowest similarity was 41%. 31 OTU representative sequences came from uncultured microbes．The results indicate that the chitinase gene diversity is quite plentiful in deep-sea sediments in the northern South China Sea，which contains a large number of unknown chitinase gene resources