Divergent functional isoforms drive niche specialisation for nutrient acquisition and use in rumen microbiome.

ABSTRACT: Many microbes in complex competitive environments share genes for acquiring and utilising nutrients, questioning whether niche specialisation exists and if so, how it is maintained. We investigated the genomic signatures of niche specialisation in the rumen microbiome, a highly competitive, anaerobic environment, with limited nutrient availability determined by the biomass consumed by the host. We generated individual metagenomic libraries from 14 cows fed an ad libitum diet of grass silage and calculated functional isoform diversity for each microbial gene identified. The animal replicates were used to calculate confidence intervals to test for differences in diversity of functional isoforms between microbes that may drive niche specialisation. We identified 153 genes with significant dif

SUBMITTER: Rubino F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5364355 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature