Microbial sRNAs are untranslated short transcripts that generally reside within intergenic regions on microbial genomes. Most microbial sRNAs function as regulators, and many are currently known to be involved in environmentally significant processes including amino acid and vitamin biosynthesis, quorum sensing, and photosynthesis. Using publicly available metatranscriptomes and metagenomes, as well as metagenomes and metatranscriptomes provided by the DeLong lab from a 2-year time-series study, the team aims to scan and assimilate all the datasets and then identify, collect, and construct a database of sRNAs. This proposed global survey of sRNAs would provide a valuable databases for investigating sRNA regulatory activities in a variety of DOE-relevant processes and contexts.
Proposer: Ed DeLong, University of Hawaii at Manoa
Proposal: Quantitative Analyses of Naturally Occurring Small RNAs in Global Metagenomic and Metatranscriptomic Datasets