Summary
While magnetosome biosynthesis within the magnetotactic Proteobacteria is increasingly well understood, much less is known about the genetic control within deep‐branching phyla, which have a ...unique ultrastructure and biosynthesize up to several hundreds of bullet‐shaped magnetite magnetosomes arranged in multiple bundles of chains, but have no cultured representatives. Recent metagenomic analysis identified magnetosome genes in the genus ‘Candidatus Magnetobacterium’ homologous to those in Proteobacteria. However, metagenomic analysis has been limited to highly abundant members of the community, and therefore only little is known about the magnetosome biosynthesis, ecophysiology and metabolic capacity in deep‐branching MTB. Here we report the analysis of single‐cell derived draft genomes of three deep‐branching uncultivated MTB. Single‐cell sorting followed by whole genome amplification generated draft genomes of Candidatus Magnetobacterium bavaricum and Candidatus Magnetoovum chiemensis CS‐04 of the Nitrospirae phylum. Furthermore, we present the first, nearly complete draft genome of a magnetotactic representative from the candidate phylum Omnitrophica, tentatively named Candidatus Omnitrophus magneticus SKK‐01. Besides key metabolic features consistent with a common chemolithoautotrophic lifestyle, we identified numerous, partly novel genes most likely involved in magnetosome biosynthesis of bullet‐shaped magnetosomes and their arrangement in multiple bundles of chains.
In the analysis of homologous sequences, computation of multiple sequence alignments (MSAs) has become a bottleneck. This is especially troublesome for marker genes like the ribosomal RNA (rRNA) ...where already millions of sequences are publicly available and individual studies can easily produce hundreds of thousands of new sequences. Methods have been developed to cope with such numbers, but further improvements are needed to meet accuracy requirements.
In this study, we present the SILVA Incremental Aligner (SINA) used to align the rRNA gene databases provided by the SILVA ribosomal RNA project. SINA uses a combination of k-mer searching and partial order alignment (POA) to maintain very high alignment accuracy while satisfying high throughput performance demands. SINA was evaluated in comparison with the commonly used high throughput MSA programs PyNAST and mothur. The three BRAliBase III benchmark MSAs could be reproduced with 99.3, 97.6 and 96.1 accuracy. A larger benchmark MSA comprising 38 772 sequences could be reproduced with 98.9 and 99.3% accuracy using reference MSAs comprising 1000 and 5000 sequences. SINA was able to achieve higher accuracy than PyNAST and mothur in all performed benchmarks.
Alignment of up to 500 sequences using the latest SILVA SSU/LSU Ref datasets as reference MSA is offered at http://www.arb-silva.de/aligner. This page also links to Linux binaries, user manual and tutorial. SINA is made available under a personal use license.
JSpecies Web Server (JSpeciesWS) is a user-friendly online service for in silico calculating the extent of identity between two genomes, a parameter routinely used in the process of polyphasic ...microbial species circumscription. The service measures the average nucleotide identity (ANI) based on BLAST+ (ANIb) and MUMmer (ANIm), as well as correlation indexes of tetra-nucleotide signatures (Tetra). In addition, it provides a Tetra Correlation Search function, which allows to rapidly compare selected genomes against a continuously updated reference database with currently about 32 000 published whole and draft genome sequences. For comparison, own genomes can be uploaded and references can be selected from the JSpeciesWS reference database. The service indicates whether two genomes share genomic identities above or below the species embracing thresholds, and serves as a fast way to allocate unknown genomes in the frame of the hitherto sequenced species.
JSpeciesWS is available at http://jspecies.ribohost.com/jspeciesws
Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
mrichter@ribocon.com.
Phytoplankton blooms characterize temperate ocean margin zones in spring. We investigated the bacterioplankton response to a diatom bloom in the North Sea and observed a dynamic succession of ...populations at genus-level resolution. Taxonomically distinct expressions of carbohydrate-active enzymes (transporters; in particular, TonB-dependent transporters) and phosphate acquisition strategies were found, indicating that distinct populations of Bacteroidetes, Gammaproteobacteria, and Alphaproteobacteria are specialized for successive decomposition of algal-derived organic matter. Our results suggest that algal substrate availability provided a series of ecological niches in which specialized populations could bloom. This reveals how planktonic species, despite their seemingly homogeneous habitat, can evade extinction by direct competition.
Publicly available sequence databases of the small subunit ribosomal RNA gene, also known as 16S rRNA in bacteria and archaea, are growing rapidly, and the number of entries currently exceeds 4 ...million. However, a unified classification and nomenclature framework for all bacteria and archaea does not yet exist. In this Analysis article, we propose rational taxonomic boundaries for high taxa of bacteria and archaea on the basis of 16S rRNA gene sequence identities and suggest a rationale for the circumscription of uncultured taxa that is compatible with the taxonomy of cultured bacteria and archaea. Our analyses show that only nearly complete 16S rRNA sequences give accurate measures of taxonomic diversity. In addition, our analyses suggest that most of the 16S rRNA sequences of the high taxa will be discovered in environmental surveys by the end of the current decade.
Celotno besedilo
Dostopno za:
DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
SILVA (from Latin silva, forest, http://www.arb-silva.de) is a comprehensive web resource for up to date, quality-controlled databases of aligned ribosomal RNA (rRNA) gene sequences from the ...Bacteria, Archaea and Eukaryota domains and supplementary online services. The referred database release 111 (July 2012) contains 3 194 778 small subunit and 288 717 large subunit rRNA gene sequences. Since the initial description of the project, substantial new features have been introduced, including advanced quality control procedures, an improved rRNA gene aligner, online tools for probe and primer evaluation and optimized browsing, searching and downloading on the website. Furthermore, the extensively curated SILVA taxonomy and the new non-redundant SILVA datasets provide an ideal reference for high-throughput classification of data from next-generation sequencing approaches.
16S ribosomal RNA gene (rDNA) amplicon analysis remains the standard approach for the cultivation-independent investigation of microbial diversity. The accuracy of these analyses depends strongly on ...the choice of primers. The overall coverage and phylum spectrum of 175 primers and 512 primer pairs were evaluated in silico with respect to the SILVA 16S/18S rDNA non-redundant reference dataset (SSURef 108 NR). Based on this evaluation a selection of 'best available' primer pairs for Bacteria and Archaea for three amplicon size classes (100-400, 400-1000, ≥ 1000 bp) is provided. The most promising bacterial primer pair (S-D-Bact-0341-b-S-17/S-D-Bact-0785-a-A-21), with an amplicon size of 464 bp, was experimentally evaluated by comparing the taxonomic distribution of the 16S rDNA amplicons with 16S rDNA fragments from directly sequenced metagenomes. The results of this study may be used as a guideline for selecting primer pairs with the best overall coverage and phylum spectrum for specific applications, therefore reducing the bias in PCR-based microbial diversity studies.
Abstract
UNITE (https://unite.ut.ee/) is a web-based database and sequence management environment for the molecular identification of fungi. It targets the formal fungal barcode—the nuclear ribosomal ...internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region—and offers all ∼1 000 000 public fungal ITS sequences for reference. These are clustered into ∼459 000 species hypotheses and assigned digital object identifiers (DOIs) to promote unambiguous reference across studies. In-house and web-based third-party sequence curation and annotation have resulted in more than 275 000 improvements to the data over the past 15 years. UNITE serves as a data provider for a range of metabarcoding software pipelines and regularly exchanges data with all major fungal sequence databases and other community resources. Recent improvements include redesigned handling of unclassifiable species hypotheses, integration with the taxonomic backbone of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility, and support for an unlimited number of parallel taxonomic classification systems.
SILVA (from Latin silva, forest, http://www.arb-silva.de) is a comprehensive resource for up-to-date quality-controlled databases of aligned ribosomal RNA (rRNA) gene sequences from the Bacteria, ...Archaea and Eukaryota domains and supplementary online services. SILVA provides a manually curated taxonomy for all three domains of life, based on representative phylogenetic trees for the small- and large-subunit rRNA genes. This article describes the improvements the SILVA taxonomy has undergone in the last 3 years. Specifically we are focusing on the curation process, the various resources used for curation and the comparison of the SILVA taxonomy with Greengenes and RDP-II taxonomies. Our comparisons not only revealed a reasonable overlap between the taxa names, but also points to significant differences in both names and numbers of taxa between the three resources.
•Comprehensive description of the history, status and future of the ARB software and SILVA datasets.•The SILVA taxonomic framework as reference for phylogenetic inference and rDNA ...classification.•Positioning of ARB and SILVA with respect to related tools and databases.
SILVA (lat. forest) is a comprehensive web resource, providing services around up to date, high-quality datasets of aligned ribosomal RNA gene (rDNA) sequences from the Bacteria, Archaea, and Eukaryota domains. SILVA dates back to the year 1991 when Dr. Wolfgang Ludwig from the Technical University Munich started the integrated software workbench ARB (lat. tree) to support high-quality phylogenetic inference and taxonomy based on the SSU and LSU rDNA marker genes. At that time, the ARB project maintained both, the sequence reference datasets and the software package for data analysis. In 2005, with the massive increase of DNA sequence data, the maintenance of the software system ARB and the corresponding rRNA databases SILVA was split between Munich and the Microbial Genomics and Bioinformatics Research Group in Bremen. ARB has been continuously developed to include new features and improve the usability of the workbench. Thousands of users worldwide appreciate the seamless integration of common analysis tools under a central graphical user interface, in combination with its versatility.
The first SILVA release was deployed in February 2007 based on the EMBL-EBI/ENA release 89. Since then, full SILVA releases offering the database content in various flavours are published at least annually, complemented by intermediate web-releases where only the SILVA web dataset is updated. SILVA is the only rDNA database project worldwide where special emphasis is given to the consistent naming of clades of uncultivated (environmental) sequences, where no validly described cultivated representatives are available. Also exclusive for SILVA is the maintenance of both comprehensive aligned 16S/18S rDNA and 23S/28S rDNA sequence datasets. Furthermore, the SILVA alignments and trees were designed to include Eukaryota, another unique feature among rDNA databases. With the termination of the European Ribosomal RNA Database Project in 2007, the SILVA database has become the authoritative rDNA database project for Europe. The application spectrum of ARB and SILVA ranges from biodiversity analysis, medical diagnostics, to biotechnology and quality control for academia and industry.