Project description:Iron-rich pelagic aggregates (iron snow) were collected directly onto silicate glass filters using an electronic water pump installed below the redoxcline. RNA was extracted and library preparation was done using the NEBNext Ultra II directional RNA library prep kit for Illumina. Data was demultiplied by GATC sequencing company and adaptor was trimmed by Trimgalore. After trimming, data was processed quality control by sickle and mRNA/rRNA sequences were sorted by SortmeRNA. mRNA sequences were blast against NCBI-non redundant protein database and the outputs were meganized in MEGAN to do functional analysis. rRNA sequences were further sorted against bacterial/archeal 16S rRNA, eukaryotic 18S rRNA and 10,000 rRNA sequences of bacterial 16S rRNA, eukaryotic 18S rRNA were subset to do taxonomy analysis.
Project description:The goal of this growth chamber experiment was to investigate the effects of diverse soil microbial communities on the transcriptional responses of plants to drought. Specifically, we sought to understand how soil microbiomes' past exposure to water-limited conditions (either long-term exposure to dry conditions in low-precipitation sites, or recent acute drought) impacted their interactions with plants. Six soils collected from remnant prairies crossing a steep precipitation gradient in Kansas, USA were used as the starting microbial communities. Thirty-two pots (or mesocosms) of each soil were divided among four treatments: droughted or well-watered, and with or without a host plant (Tripsacum dactyloides) in a factorial design. The soil mesocosms were "conditioned" in these treatments for five months. (Metagenome and metatranscriptome data from the baseline soils and the post-conditioning soils are available in a separate BioProject on NCBI SRA and GEO). Then, a microbial slurry extracted from each of the 192 conditioned soils was used to inoculate 4 plants in a subsequent experiment (the “Test Phase”): one pot per combination of watering treatment (droughted or control) and host species (Zea mays or Tripsacum dactyloides). After 4 weeks (for maize) or 5 weeks (for eastern gamagrass) we harvested one crown root per plant for 16S rRNA sequencing and another crown root for RNA-seq. The 16S and RNA-seq data for these plants (both species) are contained in this BioProject. Note that 16S rRNA sequencing data are available for all plants in this experiment, but we conducted RNA-seq only for a subset (all plants grown in microbiomes originating from the 2 driest and 2 wettest collection sites).