Short- and long-read metagenomics expand individualized structural variations in gut microbiomes.

ABSTRACT: In-depth profiling of genetic variations in the gut microbiome is highly desired for understanding its functionality and impacts on host health and disease. Here, by harnessing the long read advantage provided by Oxford Nanopore Technology (ONT), we characterize fine-scale genetic variations of structural variations (SVs) in hundreds of gut microbiomes from healthy humans. ONT long reads dramatically improve the quality of metagenomic assemblies, enable reliable detection of a large, expanded set of structural variation types (notably including large insertions and inversions). We find SVs are highly distinct between individuals and stable within an individual, representing gut microbiome fingerprints that shape strain-level differentiations in function within species, complicating the ass

SUBMITTER: Chen L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9177567 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature