Metatranscriptomics as a tool to identify fungal species and subspecies in mixed communities - a proof of concept under laboratory conditions.

ABSTRACT: High-throughput sequencing (HTS) enables the generation of large amounts of genome sequence data at a reasonable cost. Organisms in mixed microbial communities can now be sequenced and identified in a culture-independent way, usually using amplicon sequencing of a DNA barcode. Bulk RNA-seq (metatranscriptomics) has several advantages over DNA-based amplicon sequencing: it is less susceptible to amplification biases, it captures only living organisms, and it enables a larger set of genes to be used for taxonomic identification. Using a model mock community comprising 17 fungal isolates, we evaluated whether metatranscriptomics can accurately identify fungal species and subspecies in mixed communities. Overall, 72.9% of the RNA transcripts were classified, from which the vast majority (99.5%

SUBMITTER: Marcelino VR 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7184889 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature