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Patterns and ecological drivers of viral communities in acid mine drainage sediments across Southern China

Recent advances in environmental genomics have provided unprecedented opportunities for the investigation of viruses in natural settings. Yet, our knowledge of viral biogeographic patterns and the corresponding drivers is still limited. Here, we perform metagenomic deep sequencing on 90 acid mine drainage (AMD) sediments sampled across Southern China and examine the biogeography of viruses in… [Read More]

Identifying candidate structured RNAs in CRISPR operons

Noncoding RNAs with secondary structures play important roles in CRISPR-Cas systems. Many of these structures likely remain undiscovered. We used a large-scale comparative genomics approach to predict 156 novel candidate structured RNAs from 36,111 CRISPR-Cas systems. A number of these were found to overlap with coding genes, including palindromic candidates that overlapped with a variety… [Read More]

Into the darkness: the ecologies of novel ‘microbial dark matter’ phyla in an Antarctic lake

Uncultivated microbial clades (‘microbial dark matter’) are inferred to play important but uncharacterized roles in nutrient cycling. Using Antarctic lake (Ace Lake, Vestfold Hills) metagenomes, 12 metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs; 88%-100% complete) were generated for four ‘dark matter’ phyla: six MAGs from Candidatus Auribacterota (=Aureabacteria, SURF-CP-2), inferred to be hydrogen- and sulfide-producing fermentative heterotrophs, with individual… [Read More]

A sweet spot in marine ecosystems

Analysis of sediment and pore water from three seagrass meadows around the world reveals an unexpected accumulation of labile carbon in the marine rhizosphere, explained by sediment chemistry. [Read More]

Complete Genome Sequences of Two Phylogenetically Distinct Nitrospina Strains Isolated from the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans

The complete genome sequences of two chemoautotrophic nitrite-oxidizing bacteria of the genus Nitrospina are reported. Nitrospina gracilis strain Nb-211 was isolated from the Atlantic Ocean, and Nitrospina sp. strain Nb-3 was isolated from the Pacific Ocean. We report two highly similar ~3.07-Mbp genome sequences that differ by the presence of ferric iron chelator (siderophore) biosynthesis… [Read More]

Representing sex chromosomes in genome assemblies

Sex chromosomes have evolved hundreds of independent times across eukaryotes. As genome sequencing, assembly, and scaffolding techniques rapidly improve, it is now feasible to build fully phased sex chromosome assemblies. Despite technological advances enabling phased assembly of whole chromosomes, there are currently no standards for representing sex chromosomes when publicly releasing a genome. Furthermore, most… [Read More]

N-dependent dynamics of root growth and nitrate and ammonium uptake are altered by the bacterium Herbaspirillum seropedicae in the cereal model Brachypodium distachyon.

Nitrogen (N) fixation in cereals by root-associated bacteria is a promising solution for reducing use of chemical N fertilizers in agriculture. However, plant and bacterial responses are unpredictable across environments. We hypothesized that cereal responses to N-fixing bacteria are dynamic, depending on N supply and time. To quantify the dynamics, a gnotobiotic, fabricated ecosystem (EcoFAB)… [Read More]

SIMILE enables alignment of tandem mass spectra with statistical significance

Interrelating small molecules according to their aligned fragmentation spectra is central to tandem mass spectrometry-based untargeted metabolomics. Current alignment algorithms do not provide statistical significance and compounds that have multiple delocalized structural differences and therefore often fail to have their fragment ions aligned. Here we align fragmentation spectra with both statistical significance and allowance for… [Read More]

Identification of beneficial and detrimental bacteria impacting sorghum responses to drought using multi-scale and multi-system microbiome comparisons

Drought is a major abiotic stress limiting agricultural productivity. Previous field-level experiments have demonstrated that drought decreases microbiome diversity in the root and rhizosphere. How these changes ultimately affect plant health remains elusive. Toward this end, we combined reductionist, transitional and ecological approaches, applied to the staple cereal crop sorghum to identify key root-associated microbes… [Read More]