Researchers find rare sulfate reducers substantially affect methanogenesis in peatlands. The Science Utilizing microcosms of peat soil, researchers mimicked naturally fluctuating conditions to study sulfate-reducing microbes and how they regulate methane production in peat microbial communities. The Impact Numbers by themselves don’t tell the whole story. Microbes found in low abundance can play key roles… [Read More]

Researchers perform benchmark study for improving microbial community profiling. The Science Researchers use synthetic and natural microbial lake communities to compare the microbial community profiles generated from high throughput short-read sequencing and high throughput long-read sequencing approaches. The Impact Microbes play key roles in maintaining the planet’s biogeochemical cycles, but only a fraction of them… [Read More]

Genome sequences of early-diverging fungi help track origins of white rot fungi. The Science Researchers utilized draft genome sequences of 10 white rot and brown rot fungi representing early-diverging groups to help refine the timeline that dates the enzymatic origins of lignocellulose decomposition. The Impact Fungi are natural degraders of plant material and contain enzymes… [Read More]

Cultivation-independent methods and bioinformatics have dramatically expanded the number of available genome sequences. The Science Using publicly available data sets from multiple sources, including the DOE Joint Genome Institute’s data management system, researchers have reorganized the tree of life to reflect the over 30,000 eukaryote, bacterial and archaeal genomes now known. The Impact The expansion… [Read More]

Single-molecule sequencing technology assists microbial DNA methylation study. The Science Researchers sequenced 230 diverse archaeal and bacterial genomes to learn more about the roles DNA methylation plays in prokaryotes. The Impact The epigenome of a cell is the collected set of changes made to specific bases in its genomic DNA that affect how the genome… [Read More]

Comparative genomics highlight genes that may determine fungal lifestyles. The Science Researchers sequenced a fungal endophyte of rubber trees and compared its genome to 36 other fungi, focusing on genes that are crucial to host-fungus interactions. The Impact Endophytes reside within living plant cells and can play roles not just in plant health but also… [Read More]

Nine-year study tracks how distinct microbial communities evolve in freshwater lakes. The Science Researchers sequenced, assembled and analyzed bacterial genomes from a nine-year study tracking the evolution of microbial communities in a Wisconsin freshwater lake. The Impact Competing models have been put forward to answer the fundamental question of how microbes evolve, but it remains… [Read More]

Biases in current sequencing technologies hide true breadth of microbial diversity. The Science DOE JGI researchers employed datasets from the Integrated Microbial Genomes (IMG) system to determine how many microbial lineages might be missed from available sequences in existing datasets due to mismatches with currently used Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) primers. PCR is a technology… [Read More]

Assessing real-time contributions of microbial communities toward mat formation. The Science Researchers determined the contributions of different microbes toward the establishment of microbial mat communities in the hot and acidic environments of the Yellowstone Hot Springs. The Impact Microbial mats serve as model systems for studying microbial interactions and their influence over biogeochemical processes. Understanding… [Read More]

DOE JGI researchers develop an automated software tool that can scale to handle complex metagenome datasets. The Science: DOE JGI researchers have developed an automated tool called MetaBAT that automatically groups large genomic fragments assembled from metagenome sequences to reconstruct single microbial genomes. The Impact: The ability to accurately and efficiently reconstruct individual microbial genomes… [Read More]