Most organisms use oxygen to convert food into energy. However, in environments with little or no oxygen, life had found other ways to produce energy, using a process called fermentation. To better understand the range of bacteria and archaea that rely on this form of metabolism, researchers at UC Davis and UC Santa Barbara recently compiled a list of with more than 8,300 organisms from multiple sources, including the DOE Joint Genome Institute (JGI) and the DOE Systems Biology Knowledgebase (KBase). The researchers also built an interactive browser that allows other researchers to study the genomes and predict the metabolic abilities of microbes that are likely to thrive in environments with little or no oxygen.
Ten Simple Rules for Getting and Giving Credit for Data
Generating and analyzing data associated with scientific research can be challenging and complicated, to say the least. But the importance of sharing and giving credit to those who produced the data is foundational to furthering the impact of the work. Learn more about ten simple rules for getting and giving credit for data.
JGI Leads Large-Scale Effort to Develop a Genomic Catalog of Earth’s Microbiomes
Microorganisms play key roles in regulating global nutrient cycles but only a small fraction has been identified and an even smaller number has been successfully cultured in a lab for study. In Nature Biotechnology, the known diversity of bacteria and archaea has now expanded by 44% through a publicly available collection of more than 52,000 microbial genomes from environmental samples. Of that number, 70% of the novel genome sequences were previously unknown, not yet cultured in the lab. The work results from a JGI-led collaboration involving more than 200 scientists around the world, KBase and NERSC. Read more about the genomic catalog of Earth’s microbiomes on the JGI website.
A Community-driven Data Science System to Advance Microbiome Research
The National Microbiome Data Collaborative will develop an open-access framework for harnessing microbiome data to accelerate discoveries
The National Microbiome Data Collaborative (NMDC), a new initiative aimed at empowering microbiome research, is gearing up its pilot phase after receiving $10 million of funding from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science. Led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), in partnership with Los Alamos (LANL), Oak Ridge (ORNL), and Pacific Northwest (PNNL) National Laboratories, the NMDC will leverage DOE’s existing data-science resources and high-performance computing systems to develop a framework that facilitates more efficient use of microbiome data for applications in energy, environment, health, and agriculture.
Was this page useful?