Project description:Desert microbial communities live in a pulsed ecosystem shaped by isolated and rare precipitation events. The Namib desert is one of the oldest continuously hyperarid ecosystems on Earth. In this study, surface microbial communities of open soils (without sheltering features like rocks, vegetation or biological soil crusts) are analysed. We designed an artificial rainfall experiment where a 7x7 (3.5 x 3.5 m) plot remained dry while an adjacent one received a 30 mm simulated rain. Samples were taken randomly in parallel from both plots at 10 min, 1 h, 3 h, 7 h, 24 h and 7 days after the watering moment. Duplicate libraries were generated from total (rRNA depleted) RNA and sequenced 2x150 bp in an Illumina Hiseq 4000 instrument.
Project description:Biological soil crusts (BSCs) are cyanobacteria-dominated microbial communities that cover extensive portions of the world’s arid and semi-arid deserts. The infrequent periods of hydration are often too short to allow for dormancy strategies based on sporulation; consequently, survival is based on the unique capabilities of vegetative cells to resuscitate from and re-enter a stress resistant dormant state, one of which is migration within the crust layers in response to hydration. In this study, we sought to characterize the events that govern the emergence of the dominant cyanobacterium from dormancy, its subsequent growth, and the events triggered by re-desiccation and a transition back to dormant state. We performed a 48 hour laboratory wetting experiment of a desert BSC and tracked the response of Microcoleus vaginatus using a whole genome transcriptional time-course including night/day periods. This allowed the identification of genes with a diel expression pattern, genes involved uniquely in the signaling after hydration and those that contribute primarily to desiccation preparation. Desert BSC samples collected from Moab, UT, were hydrated over a period of 48 hours followed by drying induced by removal of water. At periodic times soil samples were harvested and used for RNA extraction and whole genome expression analysis using an expression array representing genes from two strains of M. vaginatus (PCC 9802 and FGP-2)
Project description:Three-day metatranscriptome of surface gravel plain soils from the Central Namib Desert. Samples were collected at four times (6:00, 12:00, 18:00 and 24:00h) on each day (n=12). rRNA-depleted RNA was used to construct stranded libraries with the ScriptSeq v2 complete kit (Epicentre) adding unique barcodes in TruSeq adapters (ScriptSeq Index PCR primers, set 1, Epicentre). Libraries were single-end sequenced in a NextSeq 500 v2 sequencer, with read length of 75bp.
Project description:Biological soil crusts (BSCs) are cyanobacteria-dominated microbial communities that cover extensive portions of the world’s arid and semi-arid deserts. The infrequent periods of hydration are often too short to allow for dormancy strategies based on sporulation; consequently, survival is based on the unique capabilities of vegetative cells to resuscitate from and re-enter a stress resistant dormant state, one of which is migration within the crust layers in response to hydration. In this study, we sought to characterize the events that govern the emergence of the dominant cyanobacterium from dormancy, its subsequent growth, and the events triggered by re-desiccation and a transition back to dormant state. We performed a 48 hour laboratory wetting experiment of a desert BSC and tracked the response of Microcoleus vaginatus using a whole genome transcriptional time-course including night/day periods. This allowed the identification of genes with a diel expression pattern, genes involved uniquely in the signaling after hydration and those that contribute primarily to desiccation preparation.
Project description:Malnutrition is a major underlying cause of mortality in children and women in low and middle-income countries, like Bangladesh. This is mostly due to the poor dietary diversity and where rice is the main staple food. This preliminary study has explored the potential for increased nutritional and health benefits from soaking rice in the traditional Bangladeshi style of traditional soaked rice Panta Bhat for its nutritional value and microbiome contents for possible nutritional and health benefits.