Assessment of source and storage conditions on bacterial composition of mineral packaged water using amplicon sequencing

The consumption of water of low microbiological quality can be detrimental and may cause significant health issues. Thus, amplicon sequencing can be an advantageous method to observe bacterial diversity in water. This study aimed to understand the complex bacterial communities present in natural mineral water packaged in 20 L returnable containers through amplicon sequencing. A high bacterial diversity was found in natural mineral water. Forty-eight bacterial genera were most abundant in the natural mineral water of different brands analyzed. These genera included Blastomonas, Brevundimonas, Gemmata, Methylobacterium, Mycobacterium, Nevskia, Nocardioides, Phenylobacterium, Pimelobacter, Ramlibacter, Rhodobacter, Sphingomonas, and Xenophilus. Also, a high bacterial diversity was found between the mineral waters brands tested in this study. Storage conditions were also shown to affect bacterial composition. Several genera known to contain pathogenic and opportunistic pathogenic species that may impact consumers' health were detected in the water samples examined.