Deciphering the microbiota data from termite mound soil in South Africa using shotgun metagenomics

We present the metagenomic dataset of the microbial DNA of a termite mound in the North West Province of South Africa. This is the foremost account revealing the microbial diversity of a termite mound soil using the shotgun metagenomics approach in the Province. Next-generation sequencing of the community DNA was carried out on an Illumina Miseq platform. The metagenome comprised of 7,270,818 sequences representing 1,172,099,467 bps with a mean length of 161 bps and 52% G + C content. The sequence data is accessible at the NCBI SRA under the bioproject number PRJNA526912. Metagenomic Rapid Annotations using Subsystems Technology (MG-RAST) was employed for community analysis and it was observed that 0.36% sequences were of archeal origin, 9.51% were eukaryotes and 90.01% were fit to bacteria. A total of 5 archeal, 27 bacterial, and 22 eukaryotic phyla were revealed. Abundant genera were Sphingomonas (6.00%), Streptomyces (5.00%), Sphingobium (4.00%), Sphingopyxis (3.00%), and Mycobacterium (3.00%), representing 19.23% in the metagenome. For functional examination, Cluster-of-Orthologous-Group (COG) based annotation showed that 46.44% sequences were metabolism associated and 17.45% grouped in the poorly characterized category. Subsystem based annotation method indicated that 14.00% sequences were carbohydrates, 13.00% were clustering-based subsystems, and 10.00% genes for amino acids and derivatives together with the presence of useful traits needed in the body of science.