Genome-wide scan of maize population finds genes affected by long-term artificial selection. The Science: Researchers conducted a genome-wide scan of a long-term maize breeding study to find the genes involved in increasing the number of ears per maize plant. The Impact: The study demonstrates how significantly reduced costs associated with sequencing and the ability to… [Read More]

Microbes disprove long-held assumption that all organisms share a common vocabulary. The Science: Through single-cell genomics and metagenomics, researchers exploring the planet’s microbial diversity have found that not all organisms interpret a series of short genetic sequences to mean the same thing. The Impact: The ability to study microbes in the wild helps researchers realize… [Read More]

A review of studies to better understand effects of climate change on microbial activities. The Science: Researchers are harnessing strategies including metagenomics to learn more about the microbial communities in permafrost and their current and potential responses to climate change. The Impact: Researchers estimate that permafrost covers a quarter of the plant’s land area, and… [Read More]

Fungal genome offers insights into growing crops in salty environments. The Science: Researchers sequenced and analyzed the genome of an extremophilic fungus that has adapted to thrive in the Dead Sea. The Impact: The genome provides information on how the fungus can tolerate extremely salty conditions. As climate change continues to affect agricultural lands and… [Read More]

Functional annotation reveals novel biomass-degrading enzymes from microbial genomes. The Science: Functional annotation allowed researchers to identify biomass-degrading enzymes in the 35 percent of genes in a genome that are considered “genomic dark matter.” The Impact: Identifying 17 putative biomass-degrading cellulases from the content of more than 5,500 microbial genomes is of use to bioenergy… [Read More]

Single cell genomics reveals diversity of cyanobacteria subpopulations. The Science: Single cell genomics allowed researchers to examine the subpopulations of the marine microbe Prochlorococcus, affording a glimpse at “a new dimension of microdiversity.” The Impact: The cyanobacterial subpopulations were found to be distinct, comprised of “genomic backbones” made of highly conserved core gene alleles and… [Read More]

Detailed protocol outlines steps for extracting ample DNA from uncultured microbes. The Science: Characterizing uncultured microbes starts with isolating and sequencing enough DNA from an environmental sample that may be as small as a single cell. The Impact: The protocol has been successfully employed to amplify the genomes of 201 single cells from uncultured microbes… [Read More]

Researchers employ RNA-Seq techniques to improve annotations for analysis. The Science: A team of researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI), the University of California, Berkeley, and the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center generated an ultra-deep, high quality transcriptome–the fraction of the genome that provides information about gene activity–of maize…. [Read More]

Recently sequenced microbes living in Deep Lake are mostly specialists, cornering different niches in the lake ecosystem The Science: Four microbes dominate in the Antarctica’s Deep Lake, making up 70% of the microbial community. They belong to a group called haloarchaea that require high salt concentrations to grow and are naturally adapted to extreme conditions… [Read More]