Seasonal microbial dynamics in the ocean inferred from assembled and unassembled data: a view on the unknown biosphere.

ABSTRACT: In environmental metagenomic experiments, a very high proportion of the microbial sequencing data (> 70%) remains largely unexploited because rare and closely related genomes are missed in short-read assemblies. The identity and the potential metabolisms of a large fraction of natural microbial communities thus remain inaccessible to researchers. The purpose of this study was to explore the genomic content of unassembled metagenomic data and test their level of novelty. We used data from a three-year microbial metagenomic time series of the NW Mediterranean Sea, and conducted reference-free and database-guided analysis. The results revealed a significant genomic difference between the assembled and unassembled reads. The unassembled reads had a lower mean identity against public databases,

SUBMITTER: Debroas D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9723795 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature