Relating genomic characteristics to environmental preferences and ubiquity in different microbial taxa

BMC Genomics

Research Article

Marta Cobo-Simón¹  Javier Tamames¹ 

[1] Systems Biology Programme, Centro Nacional de Biotecnología (CNB-CSIC), C/Darwin 3, 28049, Madrid, Spain;

关键词: Microorganisms;    High-throughput sequencing;    Functional capabilities;    Genomics;    Co-occurrences;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12864-017-3888-y

 received in 2017-02-20, accepted in 2017-06-21,  发布年份 2017

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundDespite the important role that microorganisms play in environmental processes, the low percentage of cultured microbes (5%) has limited, until now, our knowledge of their ecological strategies. However, the development of high-throughput sequencing has generated a huge amount of genomic and metagenomic data without the need of culturing that can be used to study ecological questions. This study aims to estimate the functional capabilities, genomic sizes and 16S copy number of different taxa in relation to their ubiquity and their environmental preferences.ResultsTo achieve this goal, we compiled data regarding the presence of each prokaryotic genera in diverse environments. Then, genomic characteristics such as genome size, 16S rRNA gene copy number, and functional content of the genomes were related to their ubiquity and different environmental preferences of the corresponding taxa. The results showed clear correlations between genomic characteristics and environmental conditions.ConclusionsUbiquity and adaptation were linked to genome size, while 16S copy number was not directly related to ubiquity. We observed that different combinations of these two characteristics delineate the different environments. Besides, the analysis of functional classes showed some clear signatures linked to particular environments.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© The Author(s). 2017

【 图 表 】

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