In this study, we used GeoChip 3.0 to analyze microbial functional gene diversity in alpine meadow soil samples from the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau. This report was find more one of the first ecological applications of an expanded functional gene microarray [13, 30], and it is the first application of this kind for studies in Qinghai-Tibetan plateau, China. These results indicated the overall functional genes as well as the phylogenetic diversity of these alpine meadow soil microbial communities is higher than in the Antarctic latitudinal transect or alpine soil in the Colorado Rocky Mountains

[30, 31]. All the detected genes involved in the carbon degradation, carbon fixation, methane oxidation and production, nitrogen cycling, phosphorus utilization, sulphur cycling,

organic remediation, metal resistance, energy process, and other category. According to the phylogenetic analysis, the proteobacteria group is the most dominant bacteria ZD1839 mw in all six samples, which account for over 56% among all the detected genes. Therefore, Proteobacteria maybe the most prevalent bacteria in Qinghai-Tibetan plateau. Soil is the major reservoir of terrestrial organic carbon, and soil carbon degradation is largely controlled by the metabolic activities of the microorganisms present in the soil [32, 33]. The majority of microbial studies have monitored the relationship between organic carbon in soil, CO2 release, and microbial biomass in different soil types [34, 35]. In this study, metabolic genes involved in the degradation of starch, cellulose,

hemicellulose, chitin, lignin and pectin were detected and the individual gene orthologs were abundant and diverse. Cell press For example, 76 genes related to lignin degradation were detected and the number of genes detected was 53, 37, 31, 23, 22 and 23 in SJY-GH, SJY-DR, SJY-QML, SJY-CD, SJY-ZD and SJY-YS, respectively. These detected genes related to lignin degradation belonged to 4 different gene families, including laccase, glyoxal oxidase, lignin peroxidase and manganese peroxidase, and most of the detected genes (94.59%) were derived from the isolated organisms (e.g., 17.57% from Phanerochaete sp.). Most of the shared genes were abundant in all the samples. For example, the cellobiase gene involved in cellulose degradation derived from Roseiflexus castenholzii DSM 13941 was shared by all of the six samples and had the highest signal intensity in all samples. Understanding the environmental variables that affect microbial community structure is a key goal in microbial ecology [17]. Different environmental variables affect the microbial structure and potential activity on ecosystem functions [15]. He et al [15] found that the abundance of all detected genes was significantly (P < 0.05) and positively correlated with soil moisture and pH. Yergeau et al.